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TX5ia3 J799

Bra dish, Sarah Powers.

- Stories of coyntry life /

Stanford University libraries

3 6105 04931 6016

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LIBRARIES

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ECLECTIC SCHOOL READINGS

STORIES OF COUNTRY
LIFE

BY

SARAH POWERS BRADISH

AUTHOR OF "OLD NORSE *STORIES "

NEW YORK.:. CINCINNATI.:. CHICAGO

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY

Copyright, 1901, by
SARAH POWERS BRADISH.

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London.

COUNTRY LIFE.

w. P. 3

• •••••••••• •

• •• •"•• •• •• •• ••"

I • ■

T* ■
••

•

• ••«

••

• •

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• • • • ^« *•• «• e « • <

PREFACE

These stories are, in the main, recollections of a child-
hood spent on a northwestern farm. They aim to em-
phasize the attractiveness of life in the country and to add
to its charm by awakening an intelligent interest in its
many activities.

The order of the stories is governed partly by the
sequence of seasons at which the various industries can
be best observed, and partly by the logical relation of
these industries to one another. Thus we have early in
the book stories of a wheat field and of the planting of
corn, followed later by descriptions of harvesting, stack-
ing and thrashing, the buying and selling of wheat, its
storage, and the grinding of wheat into flour.

The stories relating to lumber, coal, and iron, and the
industries to which they give rise, are scattered among
the farm stories to lend variety to the themes and to give
the child a broader view of industrial life.

The stories of animals are true stories of actual occur-
rences.

S. P. B.

^c^W

CONTENTS

PAGE

I, A Morning in March . 5

II. Various Kinds of Sugar . 9

III. The Wheat Field ... 14

IV. The Chipmunks ... 18
V. The Blacksmith Shop . 20

VI. Planting Corn .... 26

VII. Nannie 28

VIII. The Kingbirds .... 30

IX. The Bluebirds .... 32

X. The New Floor ... 35

XI. The Logging Camp . . 39

XII. Going down the River . 44

XIII. At the Sawmills ... 48

XIV. Tom 50

XV. Nails 53

XVI. Mamma Toad and her

Babies 56

XVII. The Story of Flax ... 58

XVIII. The Catbird 65

XIX. The Partridges .... 68

XX. Haying 72

XXI. Ned 78

XXII. Tom and Ben .... 80

XXIII. Harvesting 82

PAGE

XXIV. Stacking and Thrashing 86
XXV. September .... 89
XXVI. Corn Husking ... 92
XXVII. About Coal .... 96
XXVIII. First Use of Coal . . 102
XXIX. Opening a Mine . . 105
XXX. Gangways and Cross-
headings . . . .110
XXXI. Men in the Mines . 114
XXXII. Danger in the Mines 121

XXXIII. Boys and Animals in

the Mines . . .124

XXXIV. The Coal Breaker . 127
XXXV. What Walter found in

the Hickory Tree . 131

XXXVI. Iron 134

XXXVII. Ore Docks .... 137

XXXVIII. Pig Iron 139

XXXIX. Wrought Iron ... 142

XL. Steel 144

XLI. The Wheat Market . 147

XLII. The Elevator . . .152

XLIII. Buying Wheat ... 160

XLIV. The Mills .... 163

STORIES OF COUNTRY LIFE

o'i^o

I. A MORNING IN MARCH

Walter King is a Minnesota boy. He is the
son of a farmer, and he means to be a farmer when
he is a man.

When he was ten years old he thought he was
old enough to begin to learn, and his father thought
so too.

One morning in March he awoke early. The
sun had been shining all the day before, but light
snow had fallen during the night. The trees and
shrubs and roofs and fences were covered with
beautiful frost feathers.

Walter dressed quickly and ran downstairs to
feed the chickens, and pour grain into the feeding
boxes for the sheep.

When he had finished his work at the barn, he
pumped a pail of fresh water for his mother, and
came into the house, as hungry as a farmer boy
ought to be.

After breakfast Mr. King said, " Come, Walter,
let us go to the sugar bush."

There is a grove of fine maple trees on the farm,
which are full of sweet sap in early spring; and that
is the reason the grove is called the sugar bush.

They found the men already at work, taking care
of the sap. Holes had been bored in all the large
maple trees, and spouts had been driven into these
holes. Buckets hung beneath the spouts to catch the
sap, which was dripping very fast.

As the buckets were filled, the men took the sap
away to the sugarhouse, a little cabin built in the
grove. It had one room with a large stone fire-
place. A huge pan was set into a stone arch
over the fireplace. The men had filled this pan
with sap, and a fire was burning under the pan.

The sap looked like water, but tasted sweet. It
began to boil soon after it was poured into the pan;
and after it had been boiling for some time, it
turned brown. It was maple sirup then, and was
strained into another pan. There was a fire under
that pan too.

Some eggs were beaten to froth, and stirred into
the sirup. When it began to boil, tiny bits of wood
and dust came up to the top of the sirup, and clung
to the egg froth. The egg and wood and specks of
dust were all skimmed off together. The sirup was

then very clear, and of the color of amber. They
boiled it until it was very thick.

Walter pressed some clean snow into a bowl, his
father poured some of the thick sirup over the snow,
and it became stiff like wax. Walter liked the
maple wax very much.

Collecting Maple Sap.

When the sirup had boiled enough, it was dipped
into tin molds of different shapes and sizes. As
it cooled, it hardened to sugar; and, when quite
cold, the molds were turned upside down on the
shelves. When lifted off, they left rows of maple
sugar cakes. Some of the cakes were large, some
were small, some square, some of fancy shapes.
Walter liked best the pretty little scalloped cakes.

Some of the sirup was poured into large earthen
bowls. While it was cooling, it was stirred with a
big wooden spoon. The grains of sugar appeared ;
but the stirring kept them separate. They called it
" stirred sugar," and it looked like granulated sugar.

II. VARIOUS KINDS OF SUGAR

" Does all our maple sugar come from maple
trees ? " asked Walter.

" Yes," said his father ; " but most of our sugar
comes from grass."

** From grass, Papa ? " and Walter s blue eyes
opened wide.

"A kind of sweet grass that grows in hot coun-
tries," said Mr. King, "it is called sugar cane. It
is taller than corn, the stalks are thicker, and it
grows from slips, which are cut from the top of the
plant. In the West Indies these slips are planted
in moist, rich soil, at any time from June to August,
and the cane is ready to harvest in about a year and
a half. The stalks are cut close to the ground, and
the roots are covered at once with waste and ashes
from the sugar mills. The planters say this waste
is the best food for sugar cane.

" New canes shoot up from the roots. These
canes can be cut the next year; but they do not
grow so large as the first-year canes. Canes are
cut from the same roots for two or three years. At

9

lO

Cutting Sugar Cane.

last they are so small and contain so little sugar
that it does not pay to harvest them.

" When the canes are taken to the sugar mills,
the leaves and upper joints are stripped off, and the
stalks are passed between heavy iron rollers. These
rollers press out the sweet juice, which is thick and
frothy, and yellowish green' in color. It is strained
through many sieves, and runs through troughs to
great iron tanks. These tanks hold from six
hundred to eight hundred gallons ; they are called
purifiers.

" The juice is made clear in the purifiers. It is

II

slowly heated almost to boiling, and a thick scum"
rises to the top of it. This is skimmed off, as you
saw us skim the maple sirup.

" After being skimmed, the juice passes through
many pans. There is a fire under each pan, and
the juice becomes thicker as it goes along, until, in
the last pan, it is very thick indeed. As it cools,
sugar crystals appear in the sirup, and it is now
sugar and molasses, mixed. When it is cold,
the sugar is separated from the molasses and
packed in hogsheads and left to drain in the
curing house. The molasses that drips from the
sugar is the molasses with which we make ginger-
bread.

" The sugar is sent to the sugar refineries, where
it is dissolved and filtered and purified. Then it is
separated into different grades, and sent to ware-
houses. The merchants get it from the warehouses,
and sell it to us.

" Sorghum is a different kind of sugar cane, which
was found in China. It is raised from seed. Some
years ago a traveler brought the seed to this country,
and it grows very well in our climate.

" We plant the seed in the spring, and cut the
canes in early fall. The stalks are pressed between
rollers to get the juice, which is heated and purified,
like cane juice. We do not get much sugar from

12

'our sorghum ; we get more sirup, and the sirup is

very good.

" Much of our sugar is obtained from beet root."
" From the common beet root that we have in

our garden ? " asked Walter.

A Sugar-beet Farm.

" No," said his father, " sugar is made from the
white sugar beet. Millions of acres of sugar beets
are grown every year in France and Germany, and
we are growing a great many in this country too.

" It is harder to get the juice from the beet than.

13

from the cane, and beet juice is not so sweet as
cane juice; but the beets can be grown so easily
that farmers think this will be a good way to get
sugar.

" The beet juice is filtered and cleansed in the
same way as cane juice. But it is more watery, and
has many things in it besides sugar ; so that it is
more difficult to make sugar from it than from the
cane.

"We shall plant some sugar beets this year.
Perhaps we can go. to the factory next fall, and
see how they make the sugar."

III. THE WHEAT FIELD

The snow was gone and the sun shone bright and
warm. A robin peeped in at Walters window,
and sang a merry song. Walter rubbed his eyes,
and thought of Speckle on her nest in the straw
stack. He sprang out of bed and ran to the barn-
yard as quickly as he could.

He found ten little downy chickens peeping
through old Speckle's wings. He carried the
mother hen and her little ones to a safer place,
and gave them their breakfast.

After he had eaten his own breakfast, his father
said, " Do you know where we are going to sow
wheat this year, Walter ? "

" I think in the field south of the barn," said
Walter.

" What makes you think so ? "

" Because we plowed it last fall ; and I think we
plowed it to have it ready to sow wheat early in the
spring."

" That is right," said Mr. King. " We sow our
wheat in early spring; but in many places wheat,

14

IS

is sown in the fall. There are different kinds of
wheat. The wheat that is sown in the fall is called
winter wheat ; wheat sown in the spring is spring
wheat.

" The frost is all gone now, and the sunshine has
dried the wet places. The ground is soft and moist

The Harrow.

and * ready to work,' as the farmers say. We will
go to the barn and get ready to go to the field."

John was harnessing the horses, and James was
getting out the harrow. While Walter was looking
at the strong iron " teeth " of the harrow, John
hitched the horses to it, and James drove to the

i6

field and then back and forth over the plowed
ground. The harrow teeth crumbled the soil, and
leveled the edges of the furrows left by the plow in
ridges, and made the ground very fine and soft.

" Now," said Mr. King, " it is time to bring out
the seed wheat and the seeder. Here is the seed
wheat in this bin."

" It looks like the other wheat," said Walter.

" It is like the other wheat," said his father ;
"only it is better. We took pains to select the
largest and best-ripened kernels for seed. Do you
remember how we screened it ? "

" Yes," Papa," said Walter; " we screened it in the
fanning mill. The big fans in the fanning mill
blew out all the dust and chaff. The weed seeds
dropped down, with the small kernels of wheat,
under the mill."

" Then," said Mr. King, " we put a coarser
screen or sieve into the fanning mill, and passed the
cleaned wheat through again. This time the under-
sized kernels fell out, and left only the very best
wheat. This we saved to sow in the spring, and now
we shall put it into bags and take it to the field."

" There is the seeder," said Walter. " John has
just brought it out from the tool house."

" You' may drive this load of seed wheat into the
field," said his father.

17

When they reached the field John took a bag of
the wheat from the wagon, and emptied it into the
long box on the seeder.

He showed Walter the rollers under the shaft
that passed through the box. Then he started the
horses, and moved the lever at one end of the box.

He said he "threw it into gear." He meant
that, by means of the lever, he let the wheat fall to
the rollers, which sent it on to the " scatterers," or
tubes from the bottom of the box.

As he . drove along, the shaft turned around ;
the wheat fell from the rollers to the scatterers
and dropped to the ground. It was covered with the
fine soft soil by the " hoes " in the rear of the seeder.

The harrow was driven over it, to make sure that
every kernel was hidden in the ground.

So the wheat was sown.

STO. COUN. LIFE — 2

IV. THE CHIPMUNKS

" Marifima, Mamma," cried Walter, " here are
some chipmunks, right by our door ! ''

" So there are/' said his mother. " Here
some nuts for them."

Every morning
Walter left a break-
fast of nuts near
the door of the
chipmunks' house.

The Chipmunk. jj^^y jj^^^ j^ ^

house underground in one corner of the dooryard.
Their door was only a little round hole in the ground.
Walter was very careful not to frighten them when
their little bright eyes peeped out of that hole.

They soon learned to expect their breakfast ; and
if Walter did not bring it early enough in the morn-
ing, they would come up on the porch, and tap at
the screen door.

Soon they found a small place under the screen,
and learned to flatten their little bodies and make
their way into the dining room.

i8

19

One day Walter gave them a cracker. After
that they left their nuts and waited for crackers.

But they liked cookies Best of all. They ate
pieces from Walter's hand. When they had eaten
enough, Walter gave them whole ones. Then each
took a cooky, and made a wheel of it, by standing it
on its edge.

They took their cooky wheels away, by walking
on their hind legs and rolling the cookies with their
paws. Walter always opened the door for them,
and they rolled their cookies across the grass, in
the same way, to feed their little ones.

V. THE BLACKSMITH SHOP

" Now the wheat is sown," said Mr. King, " we
must get ready to plant corn. John says the plow
points are dull, and the corn ground is not plowed
yet. Jack needs new shoes, and Dolly's shoes are
loose."

" Oh, Papa," said Walter, "let me drive Jack and
Dolly to the blacksmith shop to get new shoes.
Put the plowshares in the wagon, and I can take
them along too. Mr. Lee will let me stay and see
him do it all."

" Yes," said Mr. King, " you may go. Ask Mr.
Lee to look at the wagon tires too."

Mr. Lee was the blacksmith. He was very glad
to see his little friend, Walter, and said he would be
ready to shoe Jack in a few minutes. He was
mending a corn planter for Mr. Brown just then.
Walter tied the horses and went into the shop.

He always liked to look about in Mr. Lee's shop.
He counted the horseshoes hanging from the rafters.
He looked at the hammers and the sledge ham-
mers, at the flatters for smoothing the hot iron,

ao

21

at the fullers, and the other tools for making the
iron into different shapes. He saw the tongs of
different sizes and different forms for holding the
iron and all sorts of chisels for cutting the iron both
when it is cold and when it is hot. He noticed
that the fullers and the flatters and the chisels had
curious handles made of wood twisted around them.
He saw the tanks of water in which the hot iron
is cooled, and observed a great many tools, the
names of which he did not know.

He lifted some of the tools, and said he felt
stronger after he had lifted the big sledge. He
liked to hear the ring of the hammers and anvil,
and he never tired of watching the sparks fly from
the white-hot iron, when the blacksmith's blows
first fell upon it.

There was a great pile of coal at the end of the
forge, upon which he climbed, to look into the
roaring fire. When he had watched the fire long
enough, Mr. Lee let him take the handle of the
big bellows. He blew the fire until bright sparks
flew up the black chimney. He looked longingly at
all the bits of iron that lay beside the forge, and
Mr. Lee gave him some of them. He filled his
pockets with the pieces he liked best.

Now Mr. Lee was ready for Jack, and Walter
unhitched the horses, and led them into the shop.

22

Jack needed two new shoes. Mr. Lee took down
a new steel shoe; it was too large for Jack's foot.
He took down another ; it was too small. But the
next one was just right.

He heated the shoe red-hot in the forge, and
Walter worked the bellows, while the shoe was
being heated. ^

The blacksmith took it from the .' 3 with the
long tongs, and with his hammer turned up the two
ends to make calks, to strike into the ground to
keep Jack from slipping. Then he drove a steel
calk into the front of the shoe.

He put the shoe into a box, which he called a
"shoeing box."^ There were horseshoe nails and a
hammer, and some other tools in the box. He set
it down beside Jack, and lifted Jack's foot. Jack
turned it bottom side up.

He pared the bottom of the hoof until it was flat
and even. Then he laid the shoe on this flat sur-
face, and fastened it with eight horseshoe nails.
There were eight little holes in the shoe for nails.
He fitted another shoe for Jack, and put it on in
the same way.

Then he looked at Dolly's shoes, and said they
were loose.

He placed a little bar of iron against the points
of the nails, where they came through the side of

From the Painting by Sir Edwin Landseer. Engraved by Henry W. Peckwell.

The Blacksmith.

23

24

the hoof, and struck the heads of the nails with
his hammer, so that the points were turned by
the iron bar. In this way he made the shoes
tight.

Walter led the horses out of the shop, tied them
under the shade of a tree, and brought in the
plowshares.

Mr. Lee put them into the fire on the forge.
When they were bright red he beat them with the
hammer until the cutting edge was thin and sharp.
Then he dipped them red-hot into cold water, to
harden the steel.

When they were cold he made the sharp edge
smooth and even with a file.

One of the wagon wheels rattled, and Mr. Lee
said the tire needed " setting." He took the wheel
off the wagon, and knocked the iron band off the
wheel with his hammer. The iron band was the
tire. He said that the wheel rattled because
the tire was* too large.

He cut a little piece out of the tire with his
chisel, and welded it together again. He laid it on
the ground and brought some little blocks of wood
and made a fire around it.

When the tire was hot he laid the wheel on a
bench, which had an open place in the middle for
the hub, so that the rim lay flat on the bench.

25

Then he placed the hot tire on the rim of the wheel
and drove it down with his hammer.

He poured water on it to cool it quickly, so that
the hot tire would not burn the wood rim of the
wheel. As it cooled, it grew tighter and the wheel
no longer rattled.

He helped Walter put the wheel on the wagon
again, and Walter put the plowshares back in the
wagon box, and hitched on the horses.

Walter said- he would be a blacksmith if he had
not begun to learn to be a farmer.

It was noon when he drove Jack and Dolly into
the yard at home. His father said, when he came
out to meet him, " You have saved half a day for
me, my boy."

" We could not go on with our work without the
blacksmith's help, could we. Papa ? " said Walter.

" No, indeed," said his father; " and he could not
do his work without our wheat to make his bread,
or without our money for iron and coal."

A Cornfield.

VI. PLANTING CORN

One pleasant morning in May Walter went out
to the cornfield. The ground had been plowed and
harrowed. The men were planting the corn in
" hills," which were in rows about four feet apart

" Why are you so careful to have the corn
dropped into just those places ? " asked Walter.

" Because the cultivator must be driven between
the rows," said Mr. King. " If the rows were not
straight, the horses would step on the young corn.

" The cultivator loosens the earth, and tears up

the weeds. The corn is ' cultivated ' two or three

26

27

times while it is growing. By midsummer the
corn will be so large that the horses cannot walk
between the rows."

" Do you drop a handful of corn into every hill ? "
asked Waltet*.

" We mean to put seven kernels into every hill,"
said his father ; " but they do not all grow. Do you
remember the old rhyme about planting corn ?

" ' One for the blackbird,

One for the crow,
Two for the cutworm.

And three to grow. ' "

VII. NANNIE

L,ast year Nannie was a little motherless lamb.
Walter fed her and took care of her. She had a
little house in the back yard, and she did not live
with the sheep till winter.

When her little lamb came she was very fond of
it, and the other sheep and lambs troubled her. So
Mr. King let her stay with her lamb in the grove
west of the house, and Walter looked after them.

One day Nannie bleated at the gate. We
thought she was calling Walter because she was
lonely. She bleated again and again.

At dinner time, she managed to open the gate,
and came to the dining-room door, bleating sadly.

Mr. King said : " Nannie wants something. Let
us go with her, Walter."

Nannie ran off down the path. At the gate she
looked back. She saw Mr. King and Walter com-
ing, and ran on again. She kept looking back to
see whether they were coming, as she led the way
to her lamb. -

It was lying on the ground. It had put its head

28

29

between two little trees, the trunks of which grew
close together, and held the lamb's head fast. The
little lamb did not know how to turn its head to get
it out again.

Nannie

Mr. King pulled the little trees apart, and the
lamb ran to its mother. Nannie said " Baa," and
licked Mr. King s hand.

She did not bleat any more ; for she had only
been asking for help for her lamb.

VIII. THE KINGBIRDS

" Mamma, there is a bird's nest in the fir tree,"
said Walter,

"Yes," said Mrs. King. "The kingbirds
are building there."
'* Do you mean those little birds with
gray heads and backs and white
breasts ? "
'' Yes, but under the feathers
on the top of the head you
will find a bright yellow or
orange-colored spot. These
birds are called king-
birds."
" But, Mamma, they are

The Kingbird. ^ - ^^^^ p,^jj^^ g^^^^jj ^^^^^^ ^^y

are they called kingbirds ? "

" Because they are strong and brave and able to
conquer much larger birds. The jays wanted to
build in that fir tree, and you know how the little
kingbirds drove them away."

" There is a hawk," said Walter. " He is flying

30

31

over our chicken yard. Shall I call James to bring
his gun ? "

"No," said Mrs. King; "the kingbirds will take
care of the hawk."

Walter's eyes opened very wide ; but he said
nothing. He was waiting to see what the little
birds would do.

The hawk came nearer. He spread his broad
wings and sailed slowly over the poultry yard.
Walter thought he was trying to decide which
chicken would make the best supper. The little
birds flew up from the fir tree. Walter could see
the great beak and strong talons of the hawk. He
thought the kingbirds would be torn to pieces, and
shut his eyes, so as not to see. "Look! Walter,
look ! " said his mother.

The little kingbirds were chasing the hawk.
They flew over him, and under him ; they darted
at his head; they picked his eyes, and plucked his
feathers.

The big bird flew away as fast as he could. The
kingbirds followed as far as Walter could see.
They came back to their nest ; but the hawk had
been frightened away.

IX. THE BLUEBIRDS

There were many squirrels in Mr. Kings yard.
They often chased each other up and down the
trees, and through the branches, and ran along the

Squirrels.

top of the fence. They were very playful, and
Walter liked to watch them.

He liked to watch the birds, too. One day he
saw his old friends, the bluebirds. " Mamma," he
cried, " the bluebirds have come. They are build-
ing a nest in a hole in the gatepost."

32

33

'' I am sorry we did not have that place stopped
up," said Mrs. King.

" Why, Mamma, don't you like bluebirds .^^ " asked
Walter.

" Yes," said his mother, " I like bluebirds ; but I
am sorry to have them build in the gatepost. Their
nest was torn up there last
year, and the year before,
too."

" ril watch it," said Wal-
ter.

The nest was soon fin-
ished. In a few days four
pretty blue eggs lay in the
little nest. Walter watched
it, as he had said he would.

He felt sorry for Mrs.
Bluebird. Mr. Bluebird just
sat and sane in the maple

, , , T T 1 . , T'he Bluebird.

tree over her head. He did

not bring her a worm or a kernel of grain, or even
a nice ripe berry from the garden. " Selfish . Mr.
Bluebird," said Walter. " He does not even help
her to find food when she leaves the nest. He
only sits there in sight of the blue eggs and sings."
One day Walter saw a squirrel stealing along the
top of the fence. When the squirrel came to the

STO. COUN. LIFE — 3

34

gatepost, down darted Mr. Bluebird. He pecked
at the squirrel's eyes, nipped his ears, and pulled out
tufts of hair from the top of his head. The squirrel
ran away. He did not have Mrs. Bluebird's eggs
for supper.

But Mr. Bluebird flew up into the maple tree,
and sang with all his might.

When Walter told about the battle of Mr. Blue-
bird and the squirrel, he said : " I shall not say ' sel-
fish Mr. Bluebird' any more. I shall say, * brave
Mr. Bluebird.' "

" Yes," said his mother, " thoughtful and watchful
Mr. Bluebird, too."

"Gallant Mr. Bluebird," said Uncle Fred, who
was a soldier.

X. THE NEW FLOOR

"John says we must have a new floor in the
stable," said Mr. King. " What shall we do about
it, Walter?"

" I think," said Walter, " the first thing will be to
get some boards from the lumber yard, and some
nails from the hardware store."

"Very well," said Mr. King, "get your hat, and
we will go to the lumber yard."

The wagon box was taken off the big farm wagon,
and Mr. King made a good seat. with a board and
some horse blankets, and called, "Walter, climb
up," and they started for the lumber yard in the
village.

Mr. King bought some heavy planks. The men
at work in 'the lumber yard lifted them upon the
wagon. The planks were bound together with
strong ropes and chains to keep them in place, and
Mr., King turned his horses' heads toward home.

" Papa, where does all the lumber come from ? "
asked Walter, as they drove along the quiet road.

" Most of it comes from the pine forests," said his

35

36

.S-'

father. " Do you not remember going to Lake
Superior, last fall ? "

" Oh, yes," said Walter ; " I remember the long
ride through the pine woods. Sometimes the deer
scampered away from the track, when the train
whistled."

"Yes," said Mr. King. "You were afraid they
would lose their antlers in the thick underbrush."

" But they did not," said Wal-

liey threw their heads

-gx^^-'^^K^ M^ .^c.^^iv, «iid their wide-spreading

■^^eT^'g^ _^^«L^ antlers lay on their

" shoulders. They

leaped over the
thickets and dashed
away into the forest.
I remember the In-
dians too. They had
tents in the woods."
"Yes," said Mr.
They set poles in a circle in 'the ground,
and bound them together at the top. They peeled
bark from birch trees, and fastened it over the
tent poles. This was their house or wigwam.

" They left an opening at the top, where the poles
were bound together; and made their fires in a hole
in the ground, in the center of the wigwam. The

Red Deer.

King.

37

smoke passed out through the open space which
served as a chimney."

" There was a kettle hanging over the fire in one
of the wigwams," said Walter. " They were cooking
venison for supper."

"Yes," said his father, " the carcass of .a fine deer
hung from a tree near the wigwam. The hide was

Indian Squaw and Papoose.

stretched over the poles to catch the smoke from the
fire. They were tanning it to make leggings."

" Mamma gave one of the squaws some medicine
for her sick papoose," said Walter. " And the next
day, an Indian, the babys father, brought us some
presents,, a carved ladle for Mamma, and a bow and
arrows for me. The bow was painted with gay
colors, and the arrows were tipped with feathers.

38

*' He said the papoose s name was ' South Wind,'
and Grandma gave him something nice for little
South Wind to eat. He looked pleased, but he
knew only a few English words. He seemed to
think *good-by' meant * thank you'; for he said
* good-by ' to Mamma two or three times. After he
had gone out to the gate, he came back to say, * Old
woman, good-by.' Mamma said he wanted to
thank Grandma too."

XL THE LOGGING CAMP

" Now we are halfway home," said Mr. King.
" You asked about lumber, and we have been talking
about deer and Indians. Do you remember the log
houses we saw
near the Indian

wigwam

?'

"Yes, Papa,"
said Walter,
"they stood in
the edge of the
pine woods, near

a clearing." Cabin of Round Logs.

"That was a logging camp," said his father.

" When the snow comes, in the early winter, those
houses are full of men. In summer the men stay
in their own homes ; but in winter they go into the
woods, to cut trees, and live in those houses until
the ice melts in the spring.

" They have a cook who serves their meals on
long tables in a big kitchen. They have a hearty
breakfast before daylight, and as soon as day dawns,

39

40

they go out with sharp axes and saws, to cut down
the great pine trees.

" They decide in what direction they wish a tree
to fall, and cut a deep notch in the tree on the side
toward the place where they want it to lie. The

tree will fall
toward the
notched
side. They
call it Cell-
ing the tree.'
" Then two
men bring a
long saw
with a han-
dle on each
^^"^"^ '^''''' end. They

call it a cross-cut saw. The saw is about six feet
long, the handles stand straight up, and are so long
that a man can take hold of one with both hands.
Each man takes hold of a handle. They saw into
the tree just opposite the notch.

" When the saw has cut well into the middle of
the trunk, the tree slowly breaks off, and falls with
a crash just where they want it to lie. They take
the cross-cut saw again, and saw the tree trunk into
logs from twelve to twenty-four feet long.

41

" The mark of the owner of the tree is cut into
each log with axes.

"When the logs are ready to be moved, a man
comes with a team and a short sled. This sled has
no tongue. It is made so that it can be easily
drawn about among the logs and stumps. A log
is rolled upon the small sled by means of a ' cant
hook.' A cant hook is a stout shaft of wood, with
a swinging hook near one end, which catches into
the bark of the log. It is used only for rolling
logs.

" One end of the log is bound, by a chain, to the
front of the sled, and the other end is allowed to
drag on the ground. The horses or oxen are hitched
to the chain. This binds the log more firmly to
the sled. The team is then driven to the skidway,
the place where the logs are piled, to wait till they
can be drawn to the lake or river.

" If possible, the skidway is built on a hillside, so
that the *head block' can be on the lower side.
The head block is a log about eight feet long and
as high as the sled that is to haul away the logs.
The ' skids ' are two small logs that lie across the
head block. They are the bodies of two small trees,
not large enough to make saw logs. One end of
these rests upon the head block ; the other on the
ground farther up the hillside. The logs are rolled

42

Logging.

along the skids. The first log rests upon the head
block, and the others are piled upon the skids.

" By and by a teamster comes with a strong sled,
drawn by a heavy team. Sometimes there are two
horses or two oxen ; often there are four horses or
four oxen. The sled is driven up to the skidway.
The log that lies upon the head block is rolled to
its place on the sled.

** Another log rolls down to the head block. This
log is rolled upon the sled ; and so on, till the first
row, or tier, is full.

43

" The logs on the sled are now higher than the
head block. The men bring two short skids. One
end of these skids rests on the logs on the sled, and
the other end rests on the logs on the skidway.
A long chain is fastened to the sled and passed over
the nearest log. The horses are hitched to the other
end of the chain on the other side of the sled. They
pull the chain, and the chain brings the log across
the skids to the top of the other logs upon the sled.
Other logs are drawn up, in the same way, till the
second tier is full. Then longer skids are used.
The horses draw the logs, with the chain, in the
same way. They do this until the sled is piled
high with logs.

" Sometimes, when the sleighing is good and the
teams are very strong, as many as one hundred logs
are piled on the sled, and drawn in one load. Gen-
erally, a load contains from fifteen to thirty logs.
. "The sleds are driven to the lake or river, and
unloaded on the ice."

XII. GOING DOWN THE RIVER

" Then a man comes and looks at every log.
This man is a * scaler.' He can tell how much
lumber each log will make ; that is, how many
square feet of inch boards can be sawed from it.

"He has a rule with which he measures every
log. On the rule are printed' figures which show
how many feet of lumber there are in a log of cer-
tain dimensions. But the log may be crooked or
rotten. Then the scaler must use his judgment as
well as the rule.

" While the logs are lying on the ice, the name
or mark of the owner is stamped into them with
an iron stamp hammer.

" When the ice breaks up in the spring the logs
fall into the water. The current carries them down
stream. Sometimes they float hundreds of miles,
to reach the sawmills, where they are made into
lumber.

" Men follow the logs, sometimes walking along
the shore, sometimes going in boats.

" The current of the river takes most of the logs

44

45

down stream ; but some are left in boggy places, or
are caught by points of land, or by rocks or sand
bars, while others lodge in shallow water.

" The men use long poles to turn the logs into
the stream again. They often go out on the logs

Logs in the River.

in the water. They have sharp spikes in their
shoes to keep them from falling; but sometimes
the logs turn and throw them into the water. The
river takes the logs to the ' log jam.'

" The log jam may be several miles in length.

46

The logs are heaped in great confusion. The
river brings the logs, from the camps, together
into one great log jam.

" The men climb on the loose logs and with
cant hooks roll each log, till they find the owner's
mark. This is called * log rolling.'

" When the owner s mark is found, the log is
driven into the boom.

" The booms are trails in the water, fenced by
floating logs, which are chained together at the
ends.

" The logs which fence the booms are very long :
some thirty, some sixty, or even eighty, feet long.
The ends are lapped and chained. Holes are bored
in the ends of the logs. The chain is put through
and fastened with a link and toggle."

" What is a toggle, Papa ? " asked Walter.

" A * toggle,' " said his father, " is a bar of iron
shaped like the gold bar at the end of my watch
chain, and attached to the end of the chain in the
same way. I slip this gold bar through my button-
hole, but the toggle is slipped through a link in the
chain.

" The logs are taken through the booms to the
first 'sorting gap.'

" In the sorting gap they are looked over care-
fully. The mark of each log is noted. Those

47

marked with the name of the owners of the nearest
mills are turned into the booms that lead to those
mills. The other logs are left in the first booms to
be carried to the next sorting gap.

" There the marks are read again. More logs
are taken out for the nearest mills.

"At the last sorting gap all the logs belong to
two or three mills. So the marks are now easily
found, and the logs are turned into the side booms
for the last mills on the river."

Sawmills.

XIII. AT THE SAWMILLS

"When the logs reach the mills they lie in the
water until the mill is ready for them.

" Then they are drawn up out of the water into
the mill by strong chains, and swiftly-moving saws
divide them into boards or timbers. Now they are
lumber.

" Again the teamsters come with heavy wagons
and strong horses. They draw the boards away to
the great lumber yards, where they are piled and
stay until they are * seasoned ' — which means dry
enough to be used. Some of them are loaded on
freight cars and brought to our village. They are

48

49

piled in our little lumber yard, and there we buy
what we need.

"When the logs are sawed, there are boards,
dimension lumber, slabs, or pieces too rough or too
small for sale, and sawdust. Some of the larger
pieces are cut into lath or shingles. The rest is
taken to the wood yard and used for fuel by the
people who live near the mills.

" Most of the sawdust is used for fuel in the
furnaces that make the stearn to keep the machin-
ery of the sawmills in motion. The sawdust is put
into the furnace, without being dried at all ; but it
burns well, and makes a very hot fire. A good deal
of sawdust is used for packing ice in ice houses.

" There are dark clouds in the west. If it is too
wet to work in the corn to-morrow, we will lay the
stable floor.

" Early in the morning you may drive old Tom
to the hardware store, to get the nails."

STO. COUN. LIFE — 4

XIV. TOM

Tom is the oldest horse on the farm. He does
but little work ; he is too old. Walter says Tom
has too much time to think.

One morning Grandpa King harnessed Tom, to
go to the village and get the mail. Walter was
going too.

It was a very warm morning, and Tom did not
want to go ; so he limped badly.

" Poor old Tom ! " said Grandpa, " I did not know
you were lame. You shall go to the pasture, and
Walter and I will walk."

He turned Tom's head toward home. Tom
was no longer lame, but trotted off briskly. Grandpa
King laughed. " No, Tom," said he, " Walter and
I will not walk. You can take us to the post
office."

In summer Tom spends most of his time in the
pasture. Last summer Mr. King often found the
young horses in the cornfield. Tom always stayed
in the pasture.

Mr. King thought Tom was a very well-behaved

50

51

horse to stay in the pasture when the bars were
down, but he wondered how it happened that the
bars were so often down.

One day he saw the horses eating grass in the
pasture. Tom stood alone by the bars. Mr. King

Tom lifting the Bars.

stood in the shade of a tree and watched. Tom
took the top bar in his teeth and let down one end.
Then he took the second bar and let it down the
same way, and so on until they were all down. Then
he walked back to the rest of the horses, and began to
eat grass. The young horses ran out into the corn.

52

Mr, King drove the horses back, and fastened
the bars so that Tom could not sHp them out.

He says Tom laughed when he came into the
stable that night.

XV. NAILS

Walter harnessed Tom to the buckboard. The
buckboard was a very light wagon. Mr. King said
they should need spikes in laying the stable floor,
and John said the shingle nails were all gone, and
there were only a few fourpenny and sixpenny nails
left.

Walter's father told him to get a pound of each
of these kinds of nails, and three pounds of spikes.
Spikes are very large nails.

Tom limped a little when Walter turned his head
toward the village. Walter jumped down and gave
him a big lump of sugar. That made him feel
better ; so he pricked up his ears, trotted away, and
they soon came back with the nails.

" Papa," said Walter, " I know why shingle nails
are called shingle nails ; but I do not see why such
odd names are given to the others as * fourpenny '
and * sixpenny ' nails."

" Nails are named from their use," said Mr. King,
" and from their weight. Shingle nails are also
known as * twopenny* nails. That means a thou-

53

54

sand of them weigh about two pounds. By ' four-
penny ' or * sixpenny ' or * tenpenny ' nails, we mean
that a thousand of each kind weigh about four or
six or ten pounds.

" The word ' penny ' here means * pound.* These
names were applied to nails in England. The
English workmen called them ' two-pun ' ' four-pun '
and ' ten-pun ' nails. Then other people began to
speak of them as ' twopenny ' and * tenpenny ' nails."

"How are nails made, Papa.'^" asked Walter.

" Almost all nails are now made by machines,"
said Mr. King, " from rods and bars of iron called
* nail rods.'

" Nail rods are made by rolling iron into rods or
wire, or loty cutting little bars from plate iron with
rolling shears, which sometimes cut ten miles of
nail rods in an hour.

" Nail rod^ are heated and fed to the nail-making
machine, somewhat as we feed straw to the straw-
cutter.

"A sharp knife shuts down on the rods. The
knife is called a 'slicer.' It cuts the nail rods into
pieces as long as the nail wanted.

" These pieces are called * nail blanks.' They are
caught as they fall from the * slicer,' and are held
firmly by the * neck.' A die or stamp strikes them
with force enough to form the head.

55

" From one hundred to one thousand nails are
made in an hour by this machine.

" Horseshoe nails are now the only nails made by
hand, and even many of these are made by machine.
The best horseshoe nails are those made by hand,
because iron can be made tough and even in qual-
ity by hammering. If they were not tough and of
the same quality in every place, they might split,
and splinters of iron might get into the horse's hoof.
They are made of the best iron, and are hammered
to a point.

" French wire nails are sharpened by blows from
a hammer. The * neck ' is held in a vise, and the
head is made by beating.

" The vise makes four little grooves near the head
of the nail. These grooves help to keep the nail in
its place, after it has been driven into the wood ; but
wire nails do not hold so fast as cut nails, because
they are too smooth.

" Now the men have taken up all the boards, and
cleared away the rubbish. The joists, or the* timbers
on which we nail the planks, are in good order. We
can lay the floor at once."

The men brought in the heavy planks. Two men
laid them side by side. Two more drove the big
spikes, and the new floor was finished before it was
time for Walter and Ben to bring home the cows.

XVI. MAMMA TOAD AND HER BABIES

The Toad.

There was a big mother toad in the pansy bed.
Walter had seen her there all the spring. He often

watched her as she
sat waiting for in-
sects ; for he liked to
see her tongue dart
out when flies came
near.

After a while he
noticed that the toad
sat almost all the
time in a little hole on one side of the pansy bed.
He saw, too, that every morning, when she went
away, she covered the hole so as to make it look
as smooth as if there had been nothing there. She
used her fore feet to fill the place with earth.

Walter told his mamma what the toad did, and
asked her why she hid that hole ; and his mother
said the next time the toad went away they would
see what it was she covered so carefully.

The next morning Walter ran into the house to
say that the toad was gone.

56

57

His mother took a little wooden spade, and dug
out the earth very carefully. There, in the hole,
hidden by the warm earth, were seven little baby
toads.

Mrs. King put the soft earth back, as she had
found it. Walter took care that nothing disturbed
the mother toad and her babies, until the little ones
hopped away, to look out for themselves.

One day Walter found Mrs. Toad under the
rosebush. She had been plump and brown and
warty. Now her skin seemed too large for her,
and there was a yellowish streak down her back.
She raised one arm and then the other. She
shrugged her shoulders, and rubbed her breast with
her hands. The strokes were always down. Soon
the loose skin parted at the yellow streak. Mrs.
Toad kept up the strange movements with her
hands and arms and shoulders. The skin came off.
She rolled it into a little hard ball, and swallowed
the ball.

Walter said she acted like a man putting on his
overcoat, but Mrs. Toad took hers off.

XVII. THE STORY OF FLAX

" Grandma," said Walter, one rainy day, " you
promised to tell us a story about that field of blue
flowers. Will you please tell it to-day? "

" Oh, about the flax blossoms,'* said Grandma.
" Yes, sit down, and I will tell you the story as my
grandmother told it to me when I was a little girl.

" Once there was a shepherd who had large flocks
of sheep and goats. One morning in early spring
he led his flocks out to pasture in the mountains.
He said he should be home at sunset; but when
darkness fell he had not come. The children were
restless, and the little ones were fretful, because
they wanted their supper of warm goat's milk.
Their mother soothed them, and told them that
their father had only gone a little higher up than
usual, and would soon come home.

" But he did not come that night, or the next, or
the next.

" Two goats found their way back to the cot-
tage, and their milk kept the little children from
starving.

58

59

" The shepherd had been a skillful hunter, and his
house was well supplied with warm fur rugs. These
the mother sold to buy food and fuel when the
north wind began to blow. No news came from
the dear lost father all through the winter. They
thought some wild animal had torn him in pieces,
or perhaps an avalanche, as it swept down the
mountain side, had crushed him beneath its weight
of snow and stone.

" But with early spring he came home alone.
His sheep and goats were gone, his clothes were
worn, his face was thin and pale. In one hand he
carried a bunch of blue flowers, and in the other a
measure of little brown seeds.

" After the first joy of meeting, his wife was more
sorrowful than ever ; for she thought her husband
had lost his mind as well as their means of liveli-
hood.

" But he was cheerful and happy, and seemed full
of hope, as he showed the children the pretty
flowers and told their mother about the gift of the
seed.

" All these things happened many hundred years
ago, when people believed in fairies and in gods
and goddesses.

" The day the shepherd left home he saw a fine
chamois on a crag not far above his head. Its

6o

horns glittered in the sunlight, as it leaped from
rock to rock. He took his crossbow and started in
pursuit. The beautiful creature was always in sight,
and always beyond the reach of the arrows. It led

The Shepherd and the Goddess.

him on until he came to a great glacier, when it
disappeared.

" There was an opening in the glacier, and
within the opening, was a light. The shepherd
went in boldly, and found a crystal palace within
the icy walls. The ceilings were thickly studded
with garnets. Beyond he could see beautiful

6i

groves and meadows. A tall woman stood in the
hall. She was clad in silvery garments clasped at
the waist with a golden belt. She held in her hand
a cluster of flowers as blue as her own eyes. On
her abundant fair hair rested a crown of carbuncles.
She was surrounded by beautiful maidens, whose
heads were crowned with Alpine roses. The shep-
herd knelt before the queenly woman.

" She spoke to him kindly and asked him to
choose for himself the best of all her treasures.
He begged the bunch of flowers in her hand.
She seemed pleased at his choice, and said, as she
gave them to him : ' You will live and prosper
until these flowers fade. Here is a measure of
seed. Sow it on your own land, and you will have
many such flowers as these.'

" He was about to kiss her hand, when a peal of
thunder shook the mountain and the palace was
gone.

" Only the rocks and the glacier remained ; but
he still held in his hand the beautiful blue flowers ;
and the measure of seed was by his side. He took
up the seed and the crossbow, and went back to look
after his flocks. He could not find them. Bears
and wolves had eaten them all, except a few fleet-
footed goats. He had been a whole year in the
mountains, while he thought he had spent only a few

62

hours chamois hunting. But he had the bright
blue flowers and the measure of seed.

" The children smiled when they heard the shep-
herd s story, but their mother s eyes filled with tears,
and she touched her forehead to show that she now
felt sure that her husband's mind was wandering.

" The next day the shepherd plowed a field and
sowed the seed. There was still seed in the meas-
ure. He plowed and sowed another
field ; and seed still remained. He
plowed a third field, and had seed
enough to sow it.

" Soon the little green shoots ap-
peared. The shepherd watched his
fields day and night. When the
little blue flowers unfolded, the
fields were so beautiful that even
the unhappy wife rejoiced at the
sight. Once while she was helping
tend the flowers, she saw the lady
of the mountain walking through
the fields and blessing them. The shepherd s wife
immediately recognized the beautiful lady as the
kind goddess, Holda, and, while her face shone with
joy, her heart was filled with thanksgiving.

" When the flowers had faded and the seed had
ripened, the goddess came again and showed the

Flax.

63

shepherd how to prepare the flax. Then she went
into the cottage, and told the wife how to spin and
weave the thread, and how to bleach the linen.

Spinning.

** The shepherd and his wife gave seed to their
neighbors, and taught them to cultivate flax. They
grew rich, and gave employment to thousands of
people, paying them generous wages. They lived to
see their children, grandchildren, and great-grand-

64

children gathered happily around them. After many
happy years the bunch of blue flowers began to
wither, and the shepherd knew that his work was
finished.

" A few days later he again saw the crystal palace
in the mountain, and the light beyond. He entered
the door fearlessly, it closed behind him, and he was
Hoi da's guest forever.

" But the children cultivated the flax, and sent fhe
seed to other countries, until it was known in all
parts of the world.

" When Columbus discovered the New World, the
little brown seeds were brought over in ships, and
the beautiful blue flax was grown in America.
Other uses were found out, and now whole fields of
flax are grown in our country for the seed alone.
The seed is crushed in mills ; the oil is taken out to
use in mixing paint ; what is left, called * oil meal,' is
fed to cattle and sheep. But in the old country the
flax fiber is spun and woven into the finest linens
and most delicate laces."

XVIII. THE CATBIRD

In July Walter's cousin Henry came to spend a
month on the farm. Like many older folks, Henry
thought he could not enjoy a vacation without caus-
ing pain to some innocent creature. His father
shot deer ; his big brother
caught, just for sport, more
fish than he could use
and Henry put his
" sling shot " in his
pocket to kill chip-
munks, gophers, and
birds.

The first morning after his The Catbird.

arrival he went into the garden where Hilda was
picking currants. He heard a bird singing. He
thought it was a bluebird at first, then it seemed to
be a robin, and then he could not tell what it was ;
but it sang the clearest, sweetest, most beautiful
song he had ever heard. The beautiful song, how-
ever, changed to the cry of an angry cat, when
Hilda came near the apple tree.

STO. COUN. LIFE — 5 65

66

" What's that ? '' asked Henry.

" That's a catbird," answered Hilda. " Here he
is in this apple tree. He is scolding me for taking
his currants."

In an instant Henry had drawn his " sling shot "
and sent a smooth pebble straight to the head of
the little songster. He fell at Hilda's feet.

"What's all this.?" called Mr. King, who was
driving up to the gate. " Don't you know that boys
with sling shots, and men with shotguns are never
allowed on this farm } "

" It was only a catbird, Uncle," said Henry. " It
was stealing your currants; and its wings will just
match my sister's new slate-colored dress."

" Never mind your sister's dress," said Mr. King,
coming into the garden. " I want to prove to you,
Henry, that this little bird has earned all the fruit
he has ever taken." He thereupon took out his
knife, intending to show how many insects the poor
little crop contained ; but a slight quiver in the gray
feathers showed that the bird was only stunned,
and Mr. King laid him, down under a currant bush
on a bed of leaves.

" But, Uncle," said Henry, "birds do eat fruit and
grain."

" Yes," said Mr. King, " and we must raise enough
for them too. They ought to have their share first,

67

because all the spring they have lived on worms
and insects that would have destroyed fruit and
grain and every green thing. We are indebted to
the birds for everything that grows on the farm."

Then the bird moved a little, and Mr. King said :
" Now we must go away, so as not to frighten him
when he wakes up. I hope all the catbird family
will be able to scold Hilda to-morrow morning."

XIX. THE PARTRIDGES

• On the Fourth of July Walter and Henry roused
the family at daybreak with their firecrackers. The
men attended to the work at the barn, and turned
the cattle out to pasture, while Hilda prepared an
early breakfast, that all might enjoy a long holiday.
Then the lunch baskets were packed and stowed
away in the big carriage ; the two boys led out the
horses ; and the whole family drove away to spend
the day at the lake.

The little children waded in the shallow water,
while the older ones swam or rowed or fished.
Henry caught two black bass, which Hilda broiled
for dinner, and all agreed that they had never tasted
such good fish.

In the afternoon Mr. Stevens rode out to the pic-
nic grounds. Mr. Stevens was an old friend of the
Kings, and a teacher in a city school. He wanted
some pitcher plants for his botany class. Mrs.
King said she and Walter had often found them in
the swamp on the other side of the lake, and Walter
offered to show him where they grew.

68

69

So they rowed across the lake, and found the
plants in bloom. The dark red flowers guided
them to the pitchers hidden in the grass.

The pitchers are the broad leaves of the plant,
joined at the edges to form cups. They are some-
times called "bear cups." They are filled by the

The Partridge.

rain, and hold water ; so that in times of drought
birds arid small animals can drink from them.

When they had gathered as many plants as Mr.
Stevens wanted, they started to go back to their
boat. Suddenly there was a whir; and a partridge,
with wings extended, ran across the path. A brood
of little ones followed the mother bird. They kept
up very well, but one of the weakest fell behind. It

70

stopped at Walter's feet, and hid its head under a
leaf. It seemed to feel perfectly safe, although its
whole body was in plain sight.

Mr. Stevens picked it up, and said, as he examined
its pretty mottled down : " What a treasure for our
museum ! I never saw a baby partridge before."

But Walter begged so hard for the life and free-
dom of the little bird that the kind-hearted teacher
put it down, and it scampered off after its mother.

On their return Mr. Stevens told of the adven-
ture, and Mr. King said : " After all, Walter, I am
not sure that you did the kindest thing ior the little
bird. Mr. Stevens would have taken its life, but he
would have done it as gently as possible ; and when
mounted it would have been very interesting to his
pupils. Now it probably will be shot by some
thoughtless sportsman, perhaps killed, and perhaps
wounded, and left to die a lingering death in the
woods."

"Hark!" said Mr. Stevens, "what is that.?" as
a sound somewhat like the roll of a snare drum
came across the water.

" That is the drumming of a partridge," said Mr.
King. " The male bird stands erect on a log or
rock, spreads his wings, and brings them down twice,
making a noise like the tap of a drum. After a
second's pause, he moves his wings rapidly for a

71

minute or two, making the drumming sound that we
often hear. He seems to do it by the quick motion
of his wings in the air, rather than by striking the
log. It is very seldom possible to find a partridge
in the act of drumming; for he stops at the least
disturbance, although he seems to be as fond of
making music as boys are on the Fourth of July."

" He is celebrating the Fourth of July too, isn't
he. Uncle .f^" said Henry.

XX. HAYING

" To-morrow we shall begin haying," said Mr.
King.

"May Henry and I help.j^" asked Walter.

" We can rake, of course," said Henry.

Mr. King laughed as he answered, " Forty years
ago you might have. raked, but we can hardly trust
you to do it now."

" Yes," said Grandpa King, " forty years ago, boys
like you could help in the hayfield, and in harvest
too. Then we cut the hay with scythes. Five or
six men, cutting wide swaths with their sharp
scythes, made a pretty sight."

" What is a swath ? " asked Henry.

" It is a strip of grass or grain, cut by a scythe or
cradle," said Grandpa King. "We generally had
six men to mow the grass. One man started in;
and just behind him, about four feet to his right,
came the second man ; and so on, until all six were
at work.

" When the cut grass had dried a little, we turned
it with pitchforks. After a few hours we raked it

72

73

with hand rakes into heaps, which we called hay-
cocks. You will see the same thing done by the
tedder and horserake to-morrow, if it is a pleasant
day. Then we loaded it on wagons, and drew it to
the barns or stacks, where the boys, and girls too,
could help mow away and tread down the
hay."

" Yes," said Mr. King, " I well remember
those loads of hay though I do not remem-
ber the mowing and raking. You had a
mower and a horserake before I was old
enough to go into the field.
But I think the boys will
have some fun if we do use
a mower and a tedder and a
horserake in the field, and
a hayfork for unloading."

The next morning the
boys were out early, watch-
ing the sharp knives of the mower sickle clip
off the tall grass. James was on the driver's
seat; the horses were losing their nervousness at
the clatter of the machinery; and all was going
well, when James stopped the horses and called,
"Look, Walter, there's a chicken fluttering in the
grass."

Walter ran and caught the fluttering creature.

CutUng Hay wUh
Scythes.

74

It was not a chicken, as James had supposed, but
a young crow, whose wing had been hurt.

" Take it to the house, Walter, and let Grandma
doctor it for you," said Mr. King.

Hay Harvest.

Walter carried it to Grandma King, and hurried
back to the meadow. The sunshine was bright and
hot, and Henry was resting in the shade.

/* That will never do for a farmer," thought Wal-
ter; "I must learn to stand the heat." So he
brought the men fresh water from the spring, and

75

watched his father while he put the tedder in
order.

The tedder had two wheels, and was drawn by
two horses. There were three forks fastened to
each side ; so that when the wheels revolved, the
forks tossed the hay in all directions to dry it more
quickly. It was needed only when the grass was
thick and heavy, or very wet.

** May I drive the tedder? " asked Walter.

" Yes," said Mr. King, " to-morrow morning you
may hitch old Tom and Jack to the tedder, and turn
the grass."

The next morning Walter drove the tedder for
an hour, and did his first real work in the hayfield.

In the afternoon Mr. Kins: har-
nessed Daisy to the rake, and
drove into the field. Daisy
was a young horse, and f^}j
had drawn only a light,
two - wheeled carriage, __. PfMJIJL
called a sulky. At first ^^^^^^&^
she seemed to think rrr ^ , '""--.

she was drawing a Raking — New style.

sulky, and liked it very much ; but when Mr. King
let down the long teeth of the rake, which began to
gather up the hay, she knew she was beginning to
work on the farm. She did not want to be a farm

76

horse; so she stopped and stood on her hind feet
for a long time. Mr. King talked to her; and when
she became quiet, Walter patted her nose, and gave
her lumps of sugar. After a little she went on and
raked the hay very well indeed.

In the Hayfield.

There was no rain that night ; and when the sun
had dried the dew the next morning, John harnessed
Prince and Billy to the farm wagon. The box had
been taken off, and the hayrack put on. Walter
and Henry climbed in, and John drove to the hay-

77

field. He stopped beside a haycock, and James
threw the hay upon the rack with a pitchfork. John
put it in place and drove on.

The boys tumbled on the hay, and threw it over
each other, and laughed so much that John said
they would make the horses run away. Then Wal-
ter laughed harder than ever to think how those big
clumsy draft horses would look running away, and
Henry rolled off the load. But he fell on a haycock,
so it did not hurt him.

When the rack was piled high with hay, they
drove to the barn. The boys went into the hay-
mow ; the big hayfork was shoved deep into the hay
on the rack ; old Jack was hitched to the rope at-
tached to the hayfork. When he pulled the rope,
it filled the fork and took about a sixth of the load
into the haymow. Walter and Henry helped the
men pack it away, and said that this was the best
fun of all.

XXI. NED

The wounded crow recovered rapidly under
Grandma King s treatment. One day she set him
on the gatepost, and told him he
was well enough to live
in the woods. But he
only flew about a little
while, and came back to the
house. So he became one of
tlie household pets, and Wal-
ter named him Ned.

Everybody liked Ned, al-
though he was mischievous^
and noisy. Mrs. King said
he forced the children to be
^®^' orderly, because he was sure

to carry off any small thing that happened to be
left in his way.

One day little Edith was very ill. The doctor
said she must not be disturbed by any noise ; and
he looked at Ned perched on the mantel. Mrs.
King called Walter to take the bird to the barn.

78

79

Walter shut him in the stable with Tom, but
Ned managed to get out, and was already in Edith's
room when Walter came back.

Ned had alighted on the bed, and was taking
Edith's little hot fingers one by one in his horny
beak. He said "Caw, caw" all the time, but he
said it in a whisper. The little girl opened her
eyes and smiled. After that Ned was allowed to
stay with her.

XXII. TOM AND BEN

Ben is a big black Newfoundland dog. He is
very fond of Walter, and goes all over the farm
with him. Mrs. King says she is not afraid to let
the children go anywhere with. Ben.

One very hot day Mr. King asked Walter to go
to the pasture to see whether the horses had water.

There is a well in the pasture, and a long
trough near the w^ell. The men pump water into
the trough for the horses to drink. Sometimes they
forget to do it ; then the horses get very thirsty.

When Walter and Ben came within sight of the
pasture, all the horses were standing by the trough.
They seemed to be talking to Tom, and Walter
thought they must be asking him to pump water
for them. Tom held his head very high, and
looked first at the pump and then at the empty
trough. He seemed to feel sorry for the thirsty
colts. He took the handle of the pump between
his teeth, and moved it up and down, till the water
came, and the colts drank it.

" Good old Tom," said Walter, " I will pump

some for you."

80

8i

" What ails your shoulder, Tom ? " asked
Walter.

A wasp had stung Tom's shoulder. It was
much swollen, and very painful. Walter wet his
handkerchief and held it over the swollen place.

Ben stepped up to Tom's side and licked the
place. He could reach it easily.

Tom seemed to like Ben's soft tongue better
than the wet handkerchief. Ben licked Tom's
shoulder many times every day until the wound
was cured.

Tom had never liked Ben, because, when he was
a young horse, he had learned to dislike all dogs.
But when Ben licked his shoulder, and took care
of it so faithfully, he became very fond of him.
After that he let Ben take the end of the halter,
and lead him out to water and back to the stable.

Ben was very happy with his new friend.

STO. COUN. LIFE — 6

XXIII. HARVESTING

Early in August the oats were ripe, and the
wheat fields were beginning to look white. The
heads of grain hung down with the weight of the
ripening kernels. Morning and evening the quail
piped, " More wheat, more wheat," and Mr. King,
who liked to have the flocks of quail in his fields,
said they were welcome to all the wheat they
wanted.

Walter drove Tom to the village to get the
binding twine.

" What is all this string for ? " he asked, when
John was taking it out of the wagon. '

" To tie up the bundles of grain," said John, " as
you will see to-morrow."

But Walter could not wait until the next day, so
he asked Grandpa King about harvesting.

"When my father was young," said Grandpa
King, " and that must have been about eighty years
ago, he used a sickle to cut grain. Yes, Walter,
the same kind of sickle that we use now to trim the
lawn grass about the trees and shrubbery. It was

82

83

slow, hard work, and but little progress could be
made in a day.

" When I was old enough to go into the harvest
field, we had cradles. A cradle is a scythe, to

Harvesting Oats.

which is added a framework of long fingers made
of wood, very tough and elastic. This framework
caught the grain as it fell and laid it in even
swaths, so that it could be more easily raked and
bound.

" It was all raked by hand rakes. When enough
grain had been gathered to make a bundle, a band
was made by twisting together wisps of grain, and
the bundle was bound with it. Then we set the
bundles up in shocks or stooks, as we do now.

" But we lost much grain even in small fields, for
the grain ripened faster than we could take care of
it, and the highest wages often failed to secure men

84

•

enough to save the crop. I had the first reaper in
the neighborhood."

" I remember it," said Walter's father.

" It was a clumsy affair," said Grandpa King,
** compared with the binders we have nowadays, but
it was much better than anything we had ever had
before. It cut the grain and threw it on a platform
on the rear of the machine, where a man sat and
raked it off, when enough had been cut to form a
bundle. That left the bundles on the ground for
the men to bind in the old way. A great many
men were required to keep up with one reaper.

" Then we had a reaper that threw the cut grain
upon a table on the rear platform, where two men
bound the bundles, and threw them off on the
ground. Next we had a binder that cut the grain,
and left it in bundles bound with wire. But the
wire caught in the thrashing machine, and the
pieces, left in the straw, sometimes hurt the cattle.
Now we have the twine binder, which you will see
to-morrow."

In the morning John drew the binder out from
the shed, put on the reel and the canvas " aprons,"
that had been taken off for winter, looked over all
parts carefully, and oiled the machinery, ready to
start. Then he hitched on the horses, and drove
to the harvest field.

8s

The sharp knives of the sickle cut the grain, as
the mower cut the grass ; but instead of leaving it
on the ground, the reel caught it, and threw the
heads back against a sheet of canvas, which kept
the grain straight and even, on the platform, behind
the sickle. A canvas apron on the platform car-
ried the grain up to the " elevator," which took it to
the binder.

Then Walter found the twine. It was in a box
at the rear of the elevator. One end was brought
up and threaded into the eye of a big needle. As
the grain passed along, it fell into the binder, where
it was pressed together in a bundle, and then tied
by the needle. A little knife clipped the twine,
and two strong iron arms threw it out on the
bundle carrier. When the bundle carrier held sev-
eral bundles (three or five), the driver lifted a lever
with his foot, and threw the bundles off on the
ground.

As the binder passed round the standing grain,
it threw off bundles at about the same intervals; so
that when the grain was all cut^ there were wind-
rows of bundles across the field. The men set
them up in shocks to- dry.

XXIV. STACKING AND THRASHING

When the shocks of grain had stood in the field
about ten days, the horses were again harnessed to
a wagon with a hayrack. Walter rode on the rack
as before; but this time he helped to lay the
bundles in rows, instead of tumbling among them as
he did in the hay.

When the load was finished, they drove to the
place where the stacks were to be made. The
bundles were pitched off on the ground ; the first
ones were set up in a shock, to form the center of
the stack ; the others were laid in circles round it,
on the smooth, hard ground, with the heads toward
the center, and a little higher than the butts (the
straw ends of the bundles).

The stack grew smaller as it was built up, until,
when finished, it was cone-shaped. This was to
make the stack shed water.

When the grain had lain in the stacks a few
weeks, the steam thrasher came puffing and blow-
ing into the yard. The separator, the part of the
machine that takes the wheat out of the straw and

86

87

chaff, was set up between the stacks. The engine
was placed in front of the separator, and connected
with it by a long and very heavy belt.

Some men climbed to the top of a stack ; other
men took their places about the machine; and

Thrashing Wheat.

the engineer turned on the steam. The men on the
stack pitched bundles down into the feeder. The
big iron cylinder, with savage-looking teeth, tore
the bundles to pieces, and carried them to the sieves
within the separator. There was a great noise, a
rumbling and whistling and shaking and rattling,
and the straw passed on to the straw pile, to be

88

taken care of by men who stacked it; while the
wheat poured out of a spout, at the side of the sep-
arator, into a bag hung there to catch it. A man
took off the full bag, and put an empty one in its
place, and the bags were tied and piled on a wagon
that stood near, and were driven away to the bam.
Walter could not tell what was most interesting,
the puffing engine, the separator eating up the
bundles, the yellow straw falling in heaps on the
stack, or the stream of wheat pouring out of the spout.
But he liked it all, the motion and the noise, the
chaff and the dust. When he came in at night, his
mother said, " Walter is as. dusty as a thrasher,
and too tired to ask questions."

XXV. SEPTEMBER

After the thrashers had gone Walter helped the
men clean up the scattered wheat and put the yard
in order.

" What are you going to do with all this wheat,
Papa ? " he asked.

" We must let it stay in the granary until we have
cut the corn, and then we shall take it to the first
station on its long journey," said Mr. King. " Now
we must get the corn binder ready for an early start,
Monday morning."

" Then I must go to school," said Walter, " and I
do want to help with the corn."

" Well, so you may," said his father. " There will
be at least an hour after school every afternoon, and
all day Saturday."

Monday afternoon Walter came home from school
and changed himself quickly from a little student
into a little farmer. He put on his blue " overalls "
and "jumper" and ran to the cornfield.

The corn binder was at work. It had two wheels,
and was drawn by two horses like the mower and

89

90

r

gmin binder. Its strong, sharp knives

cut big corn stalks as easily as the mower

sickle cut the grass. The needle, threaded

with twine, bound them securely; and a

pair of big iron arms tossed them to the

bundle carrier. When the bundle carrier

was full, the driver raised a lever, which

threw them on the ground.

The men set them up in shocks, as

^, they had set up the bundles of

^ A^ wheat ; only they used a wooden

^ "horse" to hold the cornstalks.

\ They made the "horse" by fas-

5^^"^=*% tening two legs to a long

f^'\ board, and passing a stick through

' .^ a hole in the board, to make a

support for the first bundles,

while the others were being placed

around them. When the shock

was large enough, the *' horse " was

drawn out, to be used again.

While the corn was drying in

the shocks, the apples turned red

and golden in the orchard, and

clusters of purple grapes peeped

; out from the broad green leaves.

Corn. Walter had been so busy watch-

3^ ^-^ ^ -' ^S^^^^W^ai

91

ing the ripening grain and fruit and all the work
of the farm, that he almost forgot the children's
garden, where they had planted pop corn in the
spring. Indeed Edith and Robert had taken most
of the care of it all summer; and one day Edith
asked, " Will the binder cut our corn, too ? "

" I think," said Grandpa King, "that Walter and
I shall have to cut your corn with old-fashioned corn
knives, and bind it with pigeon grass."

" There isn't any pigeon grass, Grandpa," said
Robert, " for we have kept the weeds all out."

"That's right," said Grandpa, "we will bind it
with the small stalks, and next month we will
have a husking bee."

So Walter brought the old corn knives, with
straight wooden handles, and soon there were four
stooks of pop corn drying in the sun.

XXVI. CORN HUSKING

The September frosts had nipped the trees
enough to remind them that it was time to get
ready for winter, and the trees had changed their
green summer dresses for the many-colored robes
of autumn, so that the October sunshine found
them gay with their short-lived finery.

Walter had been reading about the husking
frolics of New England in the good old days, and
was somewhat disappointed to find that his father
always used a " husker and shredder " to save his
corn.

" I think you will like the new way best," said Mr.
King ; " but you will soon know which you prefer,
for your mother has invited ^, dozen of your friends
to husk pop corn next Saturday."

The husker was set up in the stackyard ; a small
engine was placed near, and connected with it by a
long heavy belt, like the belt of the steam thrasher.
James drove in from the field with a load of corn
bundles. The engine shrieked and the machinery
was set in motion. James pitched a big bundle down

92

93

on the platform beside the husker. One man cut the
band and passed the stalks along to another, who
fed them to the machine, which bit them hard and
broke them into little pieces. The yellow ears
came out at one side, while the shredded stalks
and husks were carried to the place where the
stacks were to be made, and the kernels that were
taken off by the rough handling were thrown on
a sieve, and saved in a bag fastened to the spout
leading from the sieve.

"You see, Walter," said Mr. King, "that the
corn is all saved in good condition, and the cattle
like these stalks much better than they did the
stalks that were stacked in the old way."

When the husked corn was put away in the corn
house, Walter asked, " Why isn't the corn house
boarded up like the barn } "

" The corn would heat and spoil if it were kept
from the air," said his father; "so we leave a space
of about three quarters of an inch between the
boards when we build a corn house."

Saturday afternoon was as bright and warm as
October sunshine could make it. The little guests
came early in clothes suitable for farm work, as Mrs.
King had requested. The girls had gingham
aprons, and the boys brought overalls.

The pop corn was well dried. Walter took down

94

the stocks, and cut the bands. Grandpa King
husked with the children, and told stories of
husking days when he was a boy. At sunset the

work was all done,
and there was time for
games before supper.
Grandma King had
bowls of warm water,
and soft towels ready
for the soiled hands,
and strips of old linen
for the roughened and
cut fingers.

" I didn't know we
were hurting our
hands so much," said
Walter.

" Now you know what corn buskers had to en-
dure," said Grandpa King. "We have had a
pleasant day ; but if we had a whole field to husk,
we should be obliged to work among damp stalks
on frosty mornings, and snow might fall before we
could finish."

" I shall have a machine to do the husking on my
farm," said Walter.

" What is pop corn ? " asked one of the little
visitors ; " I mean, what makes it pop ? "

Husking Corn.

95

" It is a variety of Indian corn," said Grandpa
King; "but it contains more oil than the larger
kinds of corn, and when the oil expands by heat,
the kernel bursts, and the starchy part is changed

Popping Corn.

into the cream-white substance we all like so well.
We'll try it this evening, for I have a few ears dry
enough to pop, and Grandma has a coal fire ready
for us in her grate."

Coal Fields in United States.

XXVII. ABOUT COAL

After the little corn buskers had gone, Walter
lay on the rug, looking at the coals in the grate.
At last he said, " Where does coal come from,
Papa.?"

" Most of ours comes from Pennsylvania," said
Mr. King. " The lake vessels that carry away our
wheat and iron ore bring back coal."

" Yes," said Walter, " I saw the steamers and
coal docks at Duluth last year. I should like to
know something about coal itself."

" Well," said his father, " Til try to tell you what
I know about coal and what I remember about a
coal mine I saw some years ago.

96

97

" You have seen the four kinds of coal, anthracite
bituminous, lignite, and cannel. You know that we
use anthracite coal for heating houses, because it is
cleaner and more pleasant to handle ; and bituminous,
or soft coal on blacksmith's forges, because it burns
■ with a flame, and ' packs ' about the iron. That
means that, as it burns, it falls into small pieces,
which settle closely about the iron. We sometimes
burn lignite or brown coal in the grate, and it still
shows traces of the wood from which it was formed."

Steamer carrying Coal.

" Why, Papa, do they make coal from wood ? "
asked Walter,

" No, only charcoal," said Mr. King.

" Cannel coal is used chiefly in grates. It was

STO. COUN. LIFE — 7

98

first found in England, and was called ' candle coal,'
because its bright flame gave so much light; but
the people said ' cannel ' instead of ' candle,' and
the name has clung to it ever since. One variety
of cannel coal can be cut and polished. It is called
' jet,' and is made into beads and ornaments.

" Charcoal is made directly from wood, which is
covered in ' charcoal pits,' and burned very slowly,
smothered with but little air. Everything else in
the wood but charcoal is boiled out. Charcoal
burning is now rarely done. Wood is now distilled
for wood alcohol. This makes charcoal enough.
The alcohol, which is worth more than the char-
coal, used to be lost in the smoke.

" Thousands of years ago, before there were any
men in the world, those parts of the earth where
the great coal fields now lie, were covered with
marshes and lakes. It was very warm, much
warmer than the hottest countries are to-day, and
a great deal of rain fell, so that the trees and ferns
and plants grew to a very great size, much larger
than any trees and plants that we know. There
was much carbon in the air, and carbon is good for
plants, while animals cannot live in it. So . there
were no birds in the trees ; but there were insects,
such as spiders, beetles, and locusts ; and there were
enormous reptiles and many kinds of fish, and shells

99

and corals in such numbers as to form thick beds of
limestone."

" How do they know that ? " asked Walter.

" The fallen trunks of great trees have often
been found in the coal beds, and there are always

Fossil Fern Leaf^

fossils of leaves and plants in the coal seams, or in
the clay under the coal seams, and sometimes there
are fossil remains of fishes or reptiles."

" What are * fossil remains,' Papa ? "

" They are the forms of plants or animals, from
which all vegetable or. animal matter has disappeared.

lOO

so that only the stony outline is left ; or they are the
marks in the clay or rock, showing where the plant
or animal fell in the soft earth ages ago. The
clay under the coal beds is full of these marks,
and the coal itself has fossils of plants. If you make
a fragment of coal thin enough to put under a micro-
scope, you will see the outline of leaves or roots.

" Do you remember what happened last year to
the peat bed by the railroad tracks, when we had
had no rain for a long time ? "

" Yes, Papa, the marsh all dried up," said Walter.
" A spark from the engine fell into the peat bed, and
set it on fire. We could not put it out, and there
was a little fire still burning when the snow came."

" Yes," said Mr. King, " and that peat bed shows
how coal began to be formed. You have often seen
the moss that grows there. The roots of that moss
die every year, but the tops send out new roots, arid
this process goes on year after year, till the mass of
dead roots is very thick. These dead and decaying
roots become matted together, and the mass, which
is called peat, may be cut out and used to burn.
In Ireland peat is the principal fuel of the peasants.

" The peat cutters take the moss from the top,
and save it to plant again, because they know it is
the moss that makes the peat. They cut the peat
in blocks, press out the water, and pile it up to dry.

lOI

"We don't use peat for fuel, but our peat bed
would become a coal bed if it could lie undisturbed
for thousands of .years, though the coal beds have
been formed by other kinds of plants beside mosses.

" While the coal was forming, the earth was
cooling; and as it cooled it became smaller, and

Rock Fragments, showing Fossils.

the crust was broken, so that hills and mountains
rose from the level surface. The beds of coal were
disturbed; sometimes they were thrown up in
mountains, and sometimes great rents were torn
in them, and the broken places filled with rock.

" The greatest disturbance occurred in the anthra-
cite region in Pennsylvania, on the eastern slope of
the Alleghany Mountains, near the beginning of the
range, and in Rhode Island.

" It is supposed that anthracite and bituminous
coal were formed at the same time and in the same
way, but that the greater heat and pressure made
part of the coal harder and more compact."

XXVIII. FIRST USE OF COAL

" Coal is found in almost every part of the
world," continued Mr. King, "and it has been in
use for a long time. A wise man of Greece wrote
about it more than two thousand years ago, and
said it was used by smiths.

" It was burned in England about seven hundred
years ago, but the chimneys were poor, and the
black smoke and disagreeable odor of the soft coal
made people think that the air was poisoned, and
they asked Parliament to forbid its use. Their peti-
tion was granted in the time of Edward I, and the
offense of burning coal was punished by death.

" Fifty years later Edward III allowed the people
of Newcastle to ' dig coals and stones.' Newcastle
is still a famous coal market. You know we often
say * He is carrying coals to Newcastle,' when a
man is doing superfluous work.

" In America the Indians knew about coal and
were making some use of it, when the first white
men came. A bituminous mine was worked in
Virginia before the Revolutionary War; the coal

I02

I03

was used in blacksmith shops, and, to some extent,
in fireplaces. During the war it was used in mak-
ing cannon balls.

"A few years later anthracite coal was found
in Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania. It was called
' stone coal ' because it was like a very hard coal

River Transportation of Coal.

already known in England. But the English stone
coal would not burn, and the first attempts to
burn anthracite coal here ended in failure. It was
crushed, and used to make roads.

"In 1769 a blacksmith, named Gore, succeeded
in making a fire of the ' stone coal ' in his forge.
Soon after that this kind of coal was used in all the
blacksmith shops in that part of the country; but

I04

it was nearly fifty years later before it began to be
used in grates.

" Philadelphia was the first city to adopt the new
fuel ; but the introduction was made slowly and
with great difficulty, because it was so hard for
people to learn to let a fire alone. They would
put it out by poking and raking. In one rolling
mill a cartload of coal was wasted in starting a fire,
and then the firemen worked all night trying to
make a second cartload burn. Tired out, at day-
break, they shut up the furnace, and went to break-
fast. On their return they found the coal at white
heat."

XXIX. OPENING A MINE

"At first the coal mines were owned by indi-
vidual miners; but when it became necessary to
go deeper into the earth, the small owners sold or
leased their claims to those who had more money ;
and then the men who had thousands of dollars
sold or leased to those who had hundreds of thou-
sands, because it cost so much to get the coal that
lay so far from the surface.

" In the bituminous regions there are still indi-
vidual owners and small companies, because the
soft coal can be mined at less expense.

" Sometimes a seam of coal is found under good
farm land. In that case the farmers lease the coal
mine to a coal company, and go on with their
regular work, as if there were nothing of value be-
low the surface. The openings to these seams are
made from the land owned by the company, so that
the farmers are not disturbed.

" When a mine owner is about to open a mine he
examines the surface carefully. First he looks for
outcrops, or coal appearing at the surface. Then

105 •

io6

he follows the banks of the stream (if there is a
stream) to find exposed coal seams. If he finds one,
he measures its thickness, and finds out its * dip '
and ' strike ' ; that is, he finds out at what angle the
seam goes down into the earth, and the direction of
a horizontal line drawn across the seam. He notes
the strata of rock or sand or clay, because these
may tell him whether he is likely to find other
seams above or below.

" In the Wyoming Valley red sandstone often lies
above the coal. So if he finds red sandstone in
that valley, he expects to find coal also. A very
hard rock, called 'conglomerate,' made of quartz
pebbles held together by lead-colored cement, is
found under the lowest cbal seams. Whenever con-
glomerate appears, he knows that there is no coal
beneath it. He may drill through the strata in
search of coal. All this is called 'prospecting.'

" In some places coal can be cut out in large
pieces, just as stone is taken from a quarry ; but
most mines are opened in one of four ways, by
' drift,' ' tunnel,' * slope,' or ' shaft.'

" The first coal mines were opened by drift.
When a seam of coal was exposed in* a cliff or hill-
side, the miners dug directly into it, and brought
the coal out in wheelbarrows. If a stream of water
ran at the base of the cliff, the coal was thrown

I07

down into a boat. If there was no water, a wagon
road was made, a platform built over it, and the
coal thrown down into wagons. The drift is still
used in some cases; but the opening is wide
enough for two car tracks, one for bringing out the
coal, and one for the return of the empty cars.

" The roof of the drift is supported by timbers,
and the floor must be made so that the water can
run out freely, for water is almost always found in
a mine. The incline of the floor makes it easier to
push out the loaded cars. The drift is the cheapest
of the four ways of enteripg a mine, because coal
can be taken out at once, and sent to market.

" The tunnel is made in the hillside to meet the
coal seam, instead of directly entering the exposed
coal. The slope begins in the outcrop and follows
the dip of the seam.

" But most mines are now entered by a shaft,
which extends downwards sometimes many hun-
dreds of feet. One must spend thousands of dollars
before he can take out coal. A space is marked
out on the surface somewhat larger than the
finished shaft will be. From this the earth is
thrown out until rock is reached. Walls of masonry
are built up from the rock, to keep the earth from
caving in. Large timbers can be used instead of
stone, and the timber lining is called ' cribbing.'

io8

" The shaft is now about twelve feet wide, and
thirty feet long, and is divided into four compart-
ments, which extend to the foot of the shaft: a
pumpway to take the water out, two carriage ways,
and an air passage. These compartments are sepa-
rated by partitions called * buntons.' The ends of
the buntons are set in the rock. They are about
four feet apart, and are boarded closely together
down the whole distance. Where the boards meet
the rock, the spaces are filled with mortar, to make
the passages as nearly air tight as possible.

" On each side of the carriage ways, extending
from the top to the bottom, are strips of hardwood
about six inches square. These are called ' guides,'
and the carriage fits inside them. The carriage
is a well-built platform, with posts at the middle of
the sides, held together by a crossbeam at the top.

" To each side of the carriage is fastened a ' shoe,'
which fits loosely on the guides, and helps to keep
it steady when going up or down. The shoe is an
iron box without top or ends. A wire cable is fas-
tened to the middle of the crossbeam, to raise and
lower the carriage. A track is laid on the platform,
to connect with the tracks at the bottom and top of
the shaft ; so that the mine car full of coal can be
easily run on or off the carriage. The car is held
in place while on the track by blocking the wheels.

I09

" At the top of the shaft there are ' cage rests/
to hold the carriage in place. When it is ready to
go down, they are drawn away by hand levers ; when
it comes up it pushes them back, and they spring
into place to support it as soon as it has passed.

"In almost
every mine there
is a safety carriage
made of wrought
iron. It has a
roof to keep off
anything that
might fall down
the shaft, and
safety clutches to
hold it still in
case of accident.

"The miners go
in and out, and the
coal is brought
up, through the
main shaft ; but
small shafts are
sunk into the seams of coal to admit fresh air.
There are ladders in the small shafts but they
are seldom used, unless the passage to the main
shaft is cut off."

Safety Carriage.

XXX. GANGWAYS AND CROSSHEADINGS

" Now the mine owner is almost ready to take out
coal. He has sunk the shaft to the bottom of the
coal bed. He cuts a passage into the coal from
each side of the shaft. These passages, ten to four-
teen feet wide, are the beginnings of the 'gangways.'
From the ends of the shaft he cuts passages, six to
ten feet wide, and fifteen to thirty feet deep. These
are the first ' crossheadings.' From the farther ends
of the crossheadings passages are cut parallel to the
gangways. These are called ' airways.'

"Now, Papa," said Walter, "you say the mine
owner cuts these passages. Do you mean that one
man does all this work ? "

" Oh, no," said Mr. King, " the owner does not
even plan the work. The mining engineers do that,
laborers do the digging, carpenters build the shaft,
and miners cut the coal. The owner opens a mine
as Mr. Smith builds his new house — he gets men
to do it.

" When the gangways and airways are about a
hundred feet long, a new passage is cut out at right

Ill

angles to them. This is a new crossheading. All
these passages are made in the coal ; and on each
side of the shaft are left two bodies of coal about
thirty feet wide and one hundred feet long. These
are called 'pillars' because they support the rock
overhead about the shaft.

Passages in a- Coal Mine.

" Under the shaft there is a basin, called the
* sump/ made to receive the water from the mine.
The water is pumped from the sump and thrown
out at the top of the shaft.

" When the gangway and airway have been
driven two or three hundred feet, side openings are
made for taking out more coal. These openings
are called 'chambers' or 'breasts' in anthracite

112

mines, and * rooms' in bituminous mines. The
chamber is generally about twenty-four feet wide,
though the entrance from the airway is narrower
(only wide enough to admit the mine car), so that
it can be easily closed if necessary, and also to pro-
tect the airway by leaving a greater body of coal in
the pillar.

" A second chamber is made beside the first,
separated from it by a pillar of coal about eighteen
feet thick; and if the air is good, an opening may
be made between the two chambers. As the mine
is developed, many chambers are opened, and parti-
tions are made across the airway to force currents
of air into the chambers and back again into the
airway.

" The main car track extends the whole length of
the gangway ; and from this track branch tracks are
laid across the airway into each chamber up to its
' face.' The face is the farther side of the chamber.

" The work in the gangway and airway goes on
as at first. If the gangway can be kept in good
condition, without too much expense, it is some-
times three or four miles long ; but if it has to be
timbered, it is not driven more than a mile, because
it is cheaper to build a new shaft. But the gang-
way can seldom be driven in a straight line. It
must follow the coal seam, which sometimes curves

113

so much that it seems to be going back to the foot
of the shaft. There may be streams of water across
the seam ; and broken places, called 'fissures/ which
may be filled with solid rock, or with fallen pieces ;
or the seam on one side of a fissure may be higher
than it is on the other side.

" It is impossible for the mining engineer to know
what obstacle may lie in his way. The gangway
may divide, and each division may divide again;
and chambers may be made along each subdivision,
or a new gangway may be built along the faces
of the chambers, or just above them.

" If it is necessary to raise or lower a car from
one gangway to another, an inclined plane is made,
one end of a rope is fastened to a loaded car and
the other end to an empty one, the loaded car goes
down and the empty car is drawn up by the rope,
which winds itself about a revolving drum at the
head of the plane.

" The coal from all these chambers is brought
down to the main gangway, and hauled by mules
to the shaft, where the loaded cars are lifted to
the surface. If the gangway is straight enough, a
small locomotive may be used to draw the trains,
or ' trips,' of cars ; or, better still, an electric engine,
which has neither smoke nor steam."

STO. COUN. LIFE — 8

XXXI. MEN IN THE MINES

" In a small or new mine there may be only ten
or twenty men employed, while some of the larger
ones have hundreds or thousands.

" First, there is the * mine boss/ who controls the
whole working of the mine. He receives his in-
structions from the general superintendent, and
reports to him.

" Next to the mine boss is the ' fire boss,' who
looks after the ventilation of the mine. He goes
into the mine every morning, before the men come
to work, and. examines all the places where dan-
gerous gases are likely to appear, finds out whether
the air currents are right, and cautions the men
if he thinks there is any danger from bad air.

"The * driver boss' has charge of the boys who
drive mules and tend doors."

"What are * doors' in a mine, Papa.'^" Walter
asked.

" When new passages or chambers are cut," said
Mr. King, " there is sometimes a new draft, strong

114

"5

Miners and Laborers.

enough to change the direction of the ventilating
current, so that some of the passages or chambers
may be left without any fresh air. Then an air-
tight partition is built across the passage, a door
is made in it, and a boy is stationed there, to open
the door when he hears the mule driver coming
with the cars.

" Besides these men and boys, there are footmen,
carpenters, blacksmiths, masons, tracklayers, miners,
and laborers.

" In each chamber there are usually four men, two
miners and two laborers. The miners are employed
by the mine owner, and the laborers are hired by

ii6

the miners. The two miners divide their profits
equally, and are called * butties * instead of partners.
The miners cut the coal, and the laborers wait on
the miners, load the coal into the car, and clear
away the rubbish.

" Before much coal has been taken from a cham-
ber, it becomes necessary to support the roof. The
owner provides hardwood props for this purpose,
and the miners set them up along each side of the
middle line of the chamber, wherever the boss may
direct. If the roof is soft or slaty, it will take a good
deal of the miner's time to set props.

" Every coal seam has two benches, the top bench
and the bottom bench, separated by a thin partition
of slate. The bench containing the best coal is cut
first, because the blasting necessary to take out the
slaty or bony coal would make the clean brittle coal
too fine to use."-

" What .is ' bony ' coal ? " asked Walter.

" It is coal mixed with slate or clay," said Mr.
King.

" Suppose the miner has a wall of clean coal at the
face of his chamber. He has ready all his tools and
materials for work. A miner's drill is a bar of iron
tipped with steel. The steel end is flattened to
form a blade or chisel, slightly curved at the edge,
and a little wider than the bar. The other end is

117

round on one side and hollow on the other. He
selects a point on the bench of coal, and strikes it
with the steel-tipped end of his drill ; and as he re-
peats the blows, he turns the drill slightly in his
hands to make the hole round. He may use a
machine hand drill, which is worked by a crank, and
forces its way into the coal like an auger. It is
harder to turn the crank than to strike with the
drill ; but it cuts the coal faster.

" When the hole is about four and a half feet long,
it is cleaned out with a scraper, a light iron rod with
a handle on one end and a spoon on the other.
Then a cartridge is put into the hole, and pushed as
far as possible. A cartridge is a tube of manila paper
filled with black powder, and folded at the ends.
Then an iron rod, called a needle, is pushed into
the hole, till the point pierces the outer end of the
cartridge. The needle is left in the hole.

" The miner takes fine dirt from the floor of the
chamber, moistens it, if it is dry, pushes it into
the hole beside the needle, and presses it against the
cartridge with the head of his drill.. More dirt is
pressed in, until the hole is full, and the packing
firm. The hollow in the blunt end of the drill al-
lows it to avoid the needle, and at the same time fill
the hole. This is called 'tamping.' When the
tamping is finished, he turns the needle gently, and

Ii8

draws it out. This leaves a small hole for the en-
trance of the * squib /

" The squib is a long slender firecracker. If the
hole bored by the drill is very wet, a copper tube is
put in to hold the needle, and when the needle is
drawn out the squib is put in. If inflammable gases
are present, or there is any other reason to fear that
the cartridge will explode too soon, a piece of cotton
wick is dipped in oil, and attached to the fuse to
lengthen it.

" The tools are taken away ; a lighted lamp is
touched to the fuse ; the men cry ' Fire,' to warn
those who may be near, and hide behind a pillar, to
wait for the fire to reach the squib. The explosion
of the powder in the squib sends it forward to the
cartridge, and the explosion, which follows, breaks
off a large piece of coal. Then the men go
back, push the coal away, and the miner drills an-
other hole. This is repeated five or six times, to
take out a bench of coal to a distance of five or six
feet.

"The miner. can seldom stand upright and bore
directly into the face of the coal. He considers how
he can obtain the best results, and bores the hole
accordingly. Sometimes he holds the drill as high
as possible above his head ; sometimes he kneels ;
often he lies on his back or side, on the wet floor.

119

He keeps his powder chest in the chamber, as far as
possible from the *face/ the place where he is
working. In the chest, which is always locked, are
the things that he needs about his work: such as
powder, cartridge paper, a cartridge pin, squibs,
lampwick, and chalk.

Miners and their Tools.

" Near the face are his picks (the mining pick,
straight and pointed, used to bring down coal or
slate from the face or roof; and the bottom pick,
longer and curved upward at the tops, used by the
laborers in breaking up the coal after it has fallen),
two drills, sometimes a machine hand drill, a steel
crowbar, an eight-pound steel hammer, with a long

120

handle, us^d for setting props, a sledge for breaking
coal, and three large scoop shovels.

" His lamp is necessary, for without it he could not
even find his way to his work. It is a round tin box
with a flat bottom and a hinged top, a spout on one
side and a hooked handle on the other. He hooks
the handle into his cap. There is a cotton wick in
the spout for burning crude petroleum. Electric
lights are used in the gangways of some mines,
and will probably soon be in use in the chambers.

" The miner buys his own tools. The powder,
fuse, and oil are supplied by the owner and charged
to his account.

" His work is done for the day when he has cut
coal enough to make the number of carloads re-
quired by the owner. Sometimes, when the coal is
good, and he meets with no accidents, he gets
through at ten o'clock in the morning, and he
rarely works later than two o'clock in the afternoon.
He never stays to help the laborer, who takes up the
coal, loads it on the car, runs the car down to the
gangway, takes care of the slate and useless coal,
and clears the chamber for the next day. The
laborer does not finish his work till four or five
o'clock in the afternoon ; but he expects to be a
miner, and then he will have shorter hours and bet-
ter pay."

XXXII. DANGER IN THE MINES

" The great pillars that support the roofs of the
chambers contain about half the coal of the whole
mine, so the pillars must be * robbed/ after all the
coal has been taken from the chambers. The rob-
bing is begun at the face of the chambers at the far-
thest end of the mine. If too much coal is taken
off, the pillar breaks, and the slate and rock fall down
into the chamber. Sometimes the men are crushed
beneath the falling mass.

" The roof of any mine may fall, because the pres-
sure of the earth and rock from above the mine is
too great, or because there are too few props, or
because the blasting has been carelessly done. The
fall may come suddenly, or there may be signs of its
approach, such as cracks in the roof, small pieces of
slate dropping to the floor, pillars bulging in the
middle, and bits of coal breaking from them with a
crackling sound. When these things happen, the
mine is said to be * working,' and every effort is
made to support the roof.

"Sometimes the floor is so soft that the pillars

122

settle, or they may pierce a soft roof. Or the pillars
may ' slip/ or move downward. This happens only
when the incline is very steep.

" Then there are the poisonous gases. The gas
found most frequently is called ' marsh gas/ because
it is made by vegetable matter decaying under water.
The miners call it ' fire damp.' It accumulates in
cracks or open places in the coal, and often comes
out suddenly in a great volume, called a * blower.'
The miner's drill may set it free at any time ; and
his lighted lamp coming in contact with it may pro-
duce a terrific explosion. When he finds that there
is danger from fire damp, he falls flat on the floor,
and buries his face in the dirt to protect it from the
intense heat; but if he waits too long, he will be
overcome by * after damp' or 'choke damp,' gases
produced by the burning of fire damp.

" * Black damp ' does not burn. Its presence is
shown by the dimness of the lights, which grow
fainter and fainter, until they go out entirely. It is
heavier than air, and settles in the bottom of the
mine. It is swept away from the working faces by
the currents of air forced in by the ventilating
machinery ; but it accumulates in abandoned cham-
bers, and sometimes it gathers at the foot of the
shaft.

" ' White damp ' is dreaded most of all the gases,

123

because a very little brings instant death, and it is
almost impossible to detect its presence. It rises,
because it is a little lighter than air; it has neither
taste nor color, and it does not affect the flame of
the lamp. It is sometimes produced by an explosion
of blasting powder.

" In a very dry mine coal dust may explode when
mixed with air, as the result of a heavy powder blast,
or the fall of a roof. This is more likely to happen
in a bituminous mine.

" Besides the dangers from falling roofs and poi-
sonous gases, there is the terrible danger of being
lost in a mine. You can hardly understand, Walter,
what a fearful thing it is to lose one's way in the
black darkness, and to grope about in the narrow
passages in the constant dread of meeting deadly
gases, or of falling into water in the abandoned
chambers."

XXXIII. BOYS AND ANIMALS IN THE MINES

A Coal Car in the Mine

The mules that draw the loaded
cars to the shaft
and take the empty
ones back to the
chambers, are al-
most as glad as
their boy drivers
when the day's work is over. They step on the
platform of the carriage that takes them up to
the surface, and show no sign of fear or discomfort
during the ascent. Sometimes the' stables are built
in the mine, and then the poor creatures never come
out of the darkness. The drivers go down, before
seven o'clock in the morning, to feed them and get
them ready for work by the time the miners need
the cars. These dark stables are often infested with
rats that grow to a great size, and increase in num-
bers very rapidly. They are bold and fierce and
will fight to death in self-defense or to protect their
fellow rats."

" How do the rats get into the mine, Papa ? "

124

125

"No one know5," said Mr. King, "though it is
supposed that they go down with the hay and feed
for the mules.

" Miners think it a bad sign if rats leave the sta-
bles ; they expect some accident, such as the falling
of a roof . Sailors say that ' rats desert a sinking ship.'

" The driver leads his mule to the foot of the
shaft, and hitches him to a * trip ' of empty cars.
There are generally four cars in a trip. The boy
climbs into the forward car, cracks his whip, and
starts off.

"When he comes to the first chamber he is to
supply, he unfastens the first car and drives into the
chamber with it. He unhitches the mule and leads
him back to the three cars left in the gangway. He
leaves one car at each chamber on his route, and at
the last chamber he finds a loaded car waiting at
the foot. ' He leaves the last empty car, takes the
loaded one, and goes back to the shaft, attaching a
loaded car at each of the other three chambers as
he passes.

" All the light he has comes from the lamp in the
front of his cap. He must be sure of his way in the
dark passages, manage his mule, be careful not to
be caught between the cars, and quick enough to
keep from being crushed between the passing cars
and the pillars of coal or the props in the chambers.

126

" Then there are the door boys, who sit alone in
the darkness all day long, to open the doors in the
closed passages, when they hear the driver boys
coming with their mules and cars."

" Can't they have any light ? " asked Walter.

" Yes, each boy has a lamp in his cap, but it
does not give light enough to read by ; and many
of the boys are so poor that they put out the light
to save expense. They lead the most lonely life of
all the workers in the mine."

XXXIV. THE COAL BREAKER

" Near every coal mine there is a large building
called a * breaker/ in which the coal is screened and
sorted. Sometimes, in older mines, the breaker is
built over the mouth of the shaft ; but this is now
forbidden by law, which requires that * no breaker, or
other inflammable structure, shall be erected nearer
than two hundred feet to the opening of a mine.'

" So, for convenience of sending the coal away on
the railroad, the breaker is often built in a valley, and,
if possible, is placed so that the coal cars may be
run directly to the head of the breaker from the
mouth of the shaft.

" When this cannot be done, the coal is taken
up to the highest part of the breaker by a hoisting
engine ; the car is run by two headmen to the scale
platform, and then dumped on the * chute bars * —
which are long parallel iron bars set about two and
a half inches apart, and enough inclined to allow the
coal to slide down.

" The small coal, with the dirt, falls through into
a hopper, from which it goes to the screens, one on
each side of the hopper. The dirt is thrown out,

127

128

and the coal is carried to another set of revolving
screens, where it is again cleaned, and separated
into the sizes which we know as ' egg,* * stove,'
* chestnut,' and 'pea' coal, and also a very small

Coal Breaker.

coal called ' buckwheat/ From the screens these
different sizes of coal are sent down separate chutes
which are lined with sheet iron, and the stone and
slate are picked out as it slides along.

" The large coal, which slid down the iron bars,

129

goes by another chute to heavy iron rollers, which
are set with strong iron teeth so that the teeth of
one are opposite the open spaces of the other. The
surface between the teeth is perforated, to avoid
crushing the coal. As it comes from the rollers it
is screened and sent down over other b^rs and
through chutes until it comes to the picking chute.

Interior of Coal Breaker.

" The picking chutes are narrow troughs, across
which seats are fastened so that boys who pick out
the stone and slate may sit facing the slowly moving
stream of coal. They throw the waste into a trough
beside the chute, and it slides away. The boys at
the head of the chute see more stone and waste

STO. COUN. LIFE — Q

130

coal than they can pick out; they who sit next
below must look a little more carefully; and the
third set of pickers need sharp eyes to see what
the others have left. Most of these boys are in the
picking room ; but there are slate pickers all over
the breaker, wherever their work can be done to
advantage. Pickers are stationed at the refuse
chutes, to pick out the good coal that is often acci-
dentally thrown away.

" The coal at last runs into bins, which are built
over the railroad track, high enough to let coal cars
stand under them. These bins are closed by gates at
the end, and the cars are loaded by opening these
gates and allowing the coal to run into the cars.

" The very fine coal is called * culm,' and is dumped
in a pile separate from the stone or slate pile. It is
used to fill in trestlework under railroad tracks, and
to make foundation for pavements. In Europe it is
mixed with some pitchy material and pressed into
bricks, which are used for fuel ; but in this country
it costs too much to make these bricks. Poor people
come to the waste heaps with hammers and screens,
and find good coal for their home fires, and carry it
away in bags, baskets, or wheelbarrows.

" But we must not talk about coal any longer
to-night, for you must be up bright and early to go
nutting to-morrow."

The American Robin.

XXXV. WHAT WALTER FOUND IN THE
HICKORY TREE

One day in early spring Robert lost his curls,
and this was the way it happened.

" Julie Tealeaf, Julie Tealeaf," Robin Redbreast
was singing out on the lawn ; but Julie Tealeaf did
not answer.

"Julie Tealeaf, Julie Tealeaf, Julie Tealeaf," sang
Robin again ; still Julie Tealeaf did not answer.
She was Mrs. Robin Redbreast. She was sitting
on her nest in the top of the hickory tree, and was
very tired, for she had been working hard, building
her nest with the tiny twigs and wisps of grass
that Robin brought her. Now she wanted a soft
lining for her nest.

131

132

Early in the morning Robin called her to look
at a piece of lace. The lace looked very pretty, as
it lay on the grass, where Aunt Mary often gave
them crumbs. Julie Tealeaf thought Aunt Mary
had left it there for her friends, the robins. So she
took it in her beak and flew away. She used it to
bind her nest together, for it was just what she
wanted to make the nest stronger, and now all she
needed was a lining.

Robin had been very unlucky. He had called for
her many times. But she had found nothing that
would do at all for a lining for their pretty nest ; and
she was too tired to fly down again, when he called
louder than ever, "Julie Tealeaf, Julie Tealeaf."

" I suppose I must go," she said ; " but I don't
believe he has anything I shall want."

Robert and little sister had been playing on the
lawn all the morning. They had gone in to dinner
now, and had left a little heap of shining stuff at
the foot of the big tree.

Robin Redbreast was hopping around it. He
was calling : " Julie Tealeaf, Julie Tealeaf, see what
I have found! It is finer than gold and softer
than silk."

Mrs. Robin Redbreast gave him a cheerful chirp,
then seized a beakful of the golden threads and
flew back to her nest.

133

Robin Redbreast was so happy that he could
hardly keep from singing; but he followed his wife
with all he could carry. Back and forth they flew,
till their nest had a lining soft enough and pretty
enough to satisfy Julie Tealeaf.

The door of the house flew open. Out came
Robbie, and his little sister. Papa and Mamma, and
Walter. Grandpa and Grandma came too. Robbie s
yellow curls were gone, and the whole family was
searching for them in the grass. Robin heard the
little girl say that Robbie was sitting under the
tree when she cut his hair.

" Here are the scissors," said Mamma ; " and here
are three curls. The wind must have blown the
rest away."

When the north wind began to blow, Robin Red-
breast and his family flew away. When Walter
climbed the tree to shake down the nuts that frosty
day in October, he cried, " See what I have found —
Robert's curls in Robin's nest."

XXXVI. IRON

During the summer Walter had often gone to
the blacksmith shop to get some piece of the farm
machinery repaired. While he was interested in
Mr. Lee's work, he had been too much occupied
with the sowing, planting, cultivating, mowing, and
reaping, to ask many questions about other things.
But after he had learned something about coal he
wanted to know a little about iron ; so one evening
he said, " Papa, please tell me about iron."

" Well," said Mr. King, " iron is the most useful
of all metals."
, . " More useful than gold } " asked Walter.

"Yes," said his father, "gold is useful chiefly
because all men have agreed to take it for every-
thing else, while iron is essential to all our work, as
well as to our health and comfort. If I want to buy
a new machine, it would be difficult for me to take a
hundred bushels of wheat to exchange for it ; and the
man who owns it might not happen to need wheat.
But I can easily sell the wheat, and take gold to
buy whatever I need. You see gold represents the

134

135

wheat ; while the machine that I wish to buy could
not be made without iron. Without iron we could
not sow the seed, or cultivate or harvest the crop,
or take it to market; neither could we prepare
our food, or build our house, or keep it warm.
We use iron so constantly that we cease to think
about it any more than we think about the air we
breathe or the water we drink.

" Iron can be molded into any form, drawn out
to any length or fineness, spread into sheets or
plates, bent, welded, sharpened, hardened, softened,
made tough or brittle. It is found in almost every
country in the world, and in more than half the
states of the Union. The most ancient history
mentions iron and iron workers; and the use of
iron has steadily increased as nations have advanced
in civilization.

"It is taken from the earth ; but no one knows
how it came to be there. There is no record of its
beginning, as there is of the beginning of coal. It
is found in the form of sand or gravel, in ledges of
rock, sometimes on the surface, sometimes buried
deep in the earth. The soft ores are simply
shoveled out, while the hard ore is mined like coal.
Iron ore is often found with veins of coal and ledges
of limestone; so that the materials for making
iron are all at hand.

136

• " The best iron is made by mixing ores from
different mines; and some ores must be carried
long distances to find coal and limestone for smelt-
mg.

" I don't understand what limestone has to do
with making iron," said Walter.

" It is used in smelting the ores," said Mr.
King, " and is called a * flux ' ; because, when heated,
it causes the iron to melt more quickly, and it
takes up the waste, so that the melted iron is much
more nearly pure."

XXXVII. ORE DOCKS

Ore Dock.

" You remember the great ore docks that we saw
last year in Two Harbors? They are built to
ship the ores from the rich mines in our own state
to the eastern smelting furnaces near the coal fields.
The shortest dock is seven hundred and fifty feet
long, and the longest ones are a thousand feet in
length. Great breakwaters are built in the lake
to keep the waves from dashing into the harbor.
Piles are driven as far out as the docks are to go,
and the spaces are filled with stone up to the

137

138

surface of the water. Trestlework forty feet high
is built on this foundation, and a railroad track
is laid on the trestle. The ore cars run on this
track.

" The ore cars are built so that the bottom can
be let down. They are loaded at the mines —
twenty-five tons of ore in each car, and twenty-five
cars in a train. An engine draws the heavy train
down on the dock ; the doors in the bottom of the
cars are opened ; the ore falls into the storage bins
within the trestle under the track ; a vessel is drawn
up alongside the dock; the hatches are opened;
the great spouts from the bins are let down ; and the
ore pours into the hold till it is full. Then the
spouts are lifted; the hatches are fastened down,
and a tug steams away with the vessel, while
another comes up to the dock.

'* These vessels leave their cargo of ore at the
lower lake ports, and bring back coal to the upper
lake ports. The ore is then taken by rail to the
furnaces."

XXXVIII. PIG IRON

" The ore is first melted in a blast furnace, which
is made of iron lined with fire brick. It is about

Smelting Furnaces.

eighty feet high, and smaller at the bottom and top
than in the middle. The top is closed by a heavy
cone-shaped damper, which is lifted by machinery.
At the bottom there is a great tank, called the
'hearth,' to receive the melted iron. The space

139

140

between the walls about the hearth is filled with
running water to protect the lining from the intense
heat. Above the hearth are the pipes through
which the blast of hot air is forced into the furnace.

'' The stoves which heat the air are huge cylinders
divided into chambers. The air passes through all
the chambers before it goes into the furnace. There
are three or four stoves for each furnace ; and the
air gets heated to a temperature of eleven hundred
or twelve hundred degrees. The stoves are heated
by burning the gas that comes from the coal, which
makes the coke for the furnace.

" When the furnace is ready to be filled, the iron
and limestone are crushed into small pieces and put
in with the coke. Every barrow load of each
material is weighed to get the right proportions, to
avoid waste. The fires are lighted, the hot air is
turned into the pipes, and the roar of the blast
begins.

" When the iron is melted, it settles in the hearth.
The limestone, with much of the waste, floats on
the top of the melted iron, and may be drawn off
first. It is called *slag'; and when cool it looks
like coarse rock, though the slag from some varieties
of ore is fine in texture, and glassy in appearance.

" At the base of the furnace there is a bed of
sand, in which channels have been made at regular

141

Making Pig Iron.

intervals. A long deep channel from the furnace
leads to the shorter ones in the sand. The blast is
shut off, and the hearth opened. A stream of white
metal runs down the main channel, and men are
stationed by the shorter channels to see that the
last one is filled before the iron is too cool to reach
it. As soon as the iron cQols, the shorter pieces are
broken off. They are about forty inches long, and
three and a half or four inches square. They are
called * pigs,' or pig iron."

XXXIX. WROUGHT IRON

" Pig iron is not pure iron, and cannot be
used till it is freed from the other matter. So it
is broken into chunks and put into the puddling
furnace.

" This is longer than it is high, and has a sand
floor and a vaulted roof. Magnetic ore, or iron
that contains oxygen, is placed on the floor. The
fire is built at one end, and the chimney is at the
other ; so that the flame must pass through the pile
of pig iron. When it softens, the oxygen of the
added iron unites with the waste of the pig iron
and forms cinders. -

" While the pig iron is softening, a man stirs it
with a long iron rod, which he puts through a hole
in the. door of the furnace, so as to bring every
piece in contact with the air, and with the iron that
has been put in. The pure iron appears in small
globules. When the puddler sees this, he says it
is * coming to nature/ and makes up the little glob-
ules into a ball containing from sixty to eighty
pounds of iron. The assistant opens the door,

142

143

and the ball, held by long tongs, is taken to the
* squeezer,' a machine which rolls the ball into a
cylinder, and forces out the cinder. The cylinder
is rolled into bars, which are cut up and heated
again. This is repeated several times. Experience
and a good deal of skill are required to tell just
when to remove the ball. It must be heated to just
the right heat, and a delay of a minute may spoil
all the iron. This iron is called wrought or malle-
able iron."

XL. STEEL

" The old way to make steel was to place bars
of wrought iron in a furnace, and bury them in
charcoal. The charcoal was set on fire, and the air
was shut off. The slow burning continued about
two weeks. When the bars were taken out, they
were covered with blisters, and had to be melted
to make the metal of uniform quality. This was
called 'cast steel.'

" Steel is now made directly from pig iron, and
is called * Bessemer steel,' from the name of the in-
ventor, Sir Henry Bessemer, of England; though
the methods of making steel used in our country
are different from the English methods. The im-
purities are burned out, and steel is produced in
about thirty minutes, instead of almost as many days.

" Pig iron is heated red-hot. A great pear-
shaped crucible (called a converter, because it con-
verts the iron into steel) is heated to a white heat.
It is swung on hinges, and turned to receive the
red-hot iron, and then set upright. In the bottom
are a hundred or more tubes, a quarter of an inch
in diameter, through which air is forced at a very

144

145

great pressure (twenty-five pounds to the square
inch). This high pressure keeps the melted iron
from filling the air tubes. The noise of the bub-
bling metal and the roar of the air blast remind
one of a volcano ; while sparks of dazzling white-

interior of Foundry.

ness pour out in a steady stream. In about half an
hour the stream of sparks ceases, and a glow of
white heat follows. That means that the waste
matter is burned out, and that the almost pure
metal is left.

STO. COUN. LIFE — lO

146

" There is still a little oxide of iron, which must
be taken out. So a small quantity of iron contain-
ing manganese (called * spiegel iron ') is added. Part
of the manganese takes up the oxygen of the oxide
of iron, and rises as slag ; the rest of the manganese
remains in the metal, and changes it from iron to
steel. Now the converter is turned so that the
melted mass can be poured out into a ladle, which
is lifted, by machinery, to run the metal into molds.
When cold, it is ready to be sent to the rolling
mills, or it may be hammered into any shape
desired."

XLI.^ THE WHEAT MARKET

" Now, Walter," said Mr. King, " we'll take a load
of wheat to market."

The horses were harnessed, and the wagon box
was filled with bags of wheat, when Walter took his
place on the high seat beside his father. As they
drove into the village, Mr. King said, "Wheat must
be dull to-day, for there are no buyers in sight."
But when they turned a corner, a man called,
"What have you there .^"

" Wheat," replied Mr. King.

The man climbed up on the load, and untied a
bag. " That is number one, hard," he said, and of-
fered to buy; but Mr. King would not sell when
wheat was so low, so he turned his horses' heads
toward the elevator near the railroad station. He
told the man in charge that he wanted to store his
wheat, and drove on the platform scale in the ele-
vator to weigh his load. Then he poured the wheat
into the hopper, and threw the empty bags back
into the wagon which was still standing on the
scale to be weighed again. This weight, called the

H7

148

" tare," was taken from the weight of the whole load,
or gross weight, and that gave the weight of the
wheat, or the net weight. The man gave Mr. King
a receipt for the wheat, which he called a " storage
ticket."

From the hopper the wheat ran down to a pit
under the scale, from which it was taken up by heavy-
tin cups, fastened to a belt, which passed over a cyl-
inder at the top of the building, so as to draw up
the full cups, and empty them into a spout, through
which the wheat poured down into a bin. The bins
were numbered, and the different grades of wheat
were kept in separate bins. A record was kept of
the weight of wheat in every bin.

While Walter was looking at the wheat, a freight
car was pushed up the track, under a spout leading
from one of. the bins. The door of the car was
open, and the inside door was let down; the spout
was opened, and the wheat ran into the car till the
car had its load ; then the car w^s closed and sealed
and moved away, and another car was sent up.

" How do they know when the car is full enough .J^"
Walter asked.

" Do you see how this first car is marked?" asked
his father.

" Capacity twenty thousand pounds," read Walter.

" That means that this is an old car," said Mr.

149

King, "and was built to carry twenty thousand
pounds. The man in the weighing room of the
elevator knew that this car was waiting to be filled,
so he weighed twenty thousand pounds of wheat
and sent it into one of these bins over the track,

Car receiving Wheat from Elevator.

which are called 'shipping bins.' You see, the next
car is marked * Capacity eighty thousand pounds.'
That is one of the best new freight cars, and there
are eighty thousand pounds of wheat for it in an-
other shipping bin."

ping bins there are sixty thousand p

waiting for it." » said Walter;

'•'''"- '" %rntt .lu tnrn me one UUe U.
"and it is much nearer
loaded with wheat." ^^^ ^^.l^ad of

"There are more ^f ^^^ ^^^e pounds; be- •
oats." said Mr. King, "but no more p ^^^^^ ^^^^
cause a bushel of oats --gbs ^ly ^^^^^ ^^^
than half as much as jj^^^e ^^^ ^,,e bulky
carload seems larger, because ^^^^

than wheat. That means that they

room." 1 J by the bushel,"

" I thought wheat was always sold oy

i,aid NValtcr. ^^ take too

.Soitis-saidhisfartie^^ ^ut. ^^ .^ .^

loii« to measure a carload ol d .^

:;*r:r.=t=3 --IS

^i^tv IHHinds to the bushel, but a .^

;voi;^b>^ fifty-eight or more P<>""^\*° *^^^^,3 from
::,Uca numK. one; number t--vh;a^«^^«
^Vtv-^ix to fiftv-cight. and number t*^'^ *"*!" '
**\\Vto rutv-.i;; but sixty pounds must be given fo
^\":lcl of any grade of . -heat, although six^ pounds

151

of the lower grades would measure more than a
bushel.

" In all wheat there is some dust, and a few seeds
from weeds that have grown with it. In our wheat
they will probably say there is half a pound of waste
in every bushel ; and we shall have to make reduc-
tion for that waste when we sell the wheat."

Just then a big freight engine steamed in ; the
loaded grain cars were coupled on, and one train-
load of wheat started on its long journey.

XLII. THE ELEVATOR

"Walter has taken so much interest in all the
farm work, and especially in the wheat crop," said
Mr. King, " that I have planned my trip to the city
to take him with me during his vacation." So, on
the first holiday, John took them to the station ; and
when they were well on their way, Mr. King asked,
" What would you like to see first ? "

" What becomes of the wheat," said Walter.

" Very well," said his father, " as soon as I have
attended to a little business, we will see about the
wheat."

Mr. King knew the superintendent of one of the
storage elevators, and readily obtained permission
to go over the building. It was very large, and
covered with plates of corrugated iron, to protect it
from fire. " You see, Walter," said Mr. King, " that
trains of cars are constantly passing on both sides,
and a stray spark from an engine might kindle a
great fire, as each of these elevators contains from
half a million to about two million bushels of grain.
But before we go farther, let us look at the cars on
this track."

152

153

" There are no locomotives here," said Walter.

" No," said his father, " because all these cars must
go into the elevator to be unloaded ; and no engine
is allowed within the building, not even the great
engine that runs all the machinery. That is in the
low brick building over there."

Grain Elevator.

The cars were filled with wheat ; the car doors
had been pushed back ; and the inner doors, next to
the wheat, had been pried up, so that they could be
easily and quickly raised, when the cars entered the
elevator. On the inner door were tacked cards,
on which were written the number of the car, the
amount of wheat it contained, the grade of the wheat,

154

and the name of the inspector (the man appointed
by the state to examine the wheat and determine its
grade). These cards were taken off and saved care-
fully. If the owner was not satisfied with the grad-
ing, another card was added, and the wheat was
inspected again before it was taken into the elevator.

A man came out from the elevator carrying a
great iron hook attached to a thick cable. As he
fastened the hook to the first car, Mr. King said,
" Now we must go in, Walter."

The cable was wound round an iron cylinder in
the building, and passed through stationary pulleys
beside the track. As the cylinder revolved slowly,
the cable tightened and drew the car down the track
into the elevator, and that car drew another be-
hind it. When the first car stood over a grating in
the floor, the second car had gone a little beyond a
second similar grating. The iron hook was then
attached to the second car, the cable tightened
again, and the car was drawn back till it stood
exactly over the grating.

In an instant two men had put crowbars under
the sliding inner door, and shoved it up. The
wheat poured out upon the grating. As soon as it
was lowered enough, the two men entered the car
with two large steam shovels, which they set up in
the wheat. The ropes attached to the shovels

155

tightened instantly, and two shovelfuls of wheat
were pushed out. The men drew the shovels back,
and the same thing was done again.

As soon as the floor in the rear of the car was
uncovered, a man climbed in with a broom, and
began to sweep the scattered wheat up to the pile
in front. Soon the big shovels had taken most of

Interior of Grain Elevator.

it out. Then the men leaped over to the platform,
laid down the shovels, seized brooms, and sprang
into the car again. All three swept the rest of the
wheat out as quickly as possible. Then two more
cars were drawn in by the cable, and the two new
cars pushed the first ones off down the track, to
make way for themselves on the gratings. All

156

the men who were unloading wheat, w^ore handker-
chiefs or sponges tied over their mouths and noses
to keep out the dust, which rose from even the
cleanest wheat.

"What is that man going to do. Papa?" asked
Walter, pointing down the track.

" He is going to sweep the cars again," said Mr.
King. " He will find a few kernels in the corners
of the cars, and he will sweep a few out of the
cracks. He will feed this wheat to his chickens, or
sell it to his neighbor, or possibly to the owner of
a feed store, if he gets enough.

" But we are forgetting those carloads of wheat.
Do you see these two long upright boxes that look
like posts ? Through the glass on this side, you
see what seems to be a sheet of tin moving rapidly.
These are tin cups riveted to a leather belt. Each
cup holds from eight to sixteen quarts of wheat;
but the belt moves so fast that you can see neither
the cups nor the wheat ; only the glitter of the tin,
as the cups are carried along. They are carrying
the two carloads of wheat to the garners in the
highest part of the building. While the wheat is
going up, we will go to the weighing room on the
floor just below the garners."

Mr. King opened the door to a little passenger
elevator, and they began the ascent. The elevator

157

shaft was boarded as closely as a mine shaft be-
cause, in case of fire, a long open shaft would make
a strong draft, and carry the flames from one floor
to another.

At the weighing room they stepped out and
looked at the great scales, each one big enough to
weigh a whole carload of wheat. A huge hopper
rested on each scale. The narrow space, between
the hopper and the ceiling, was covered with canvas
to keep the dust from flying into the weighing room,
when the wheat came down.

When the two carloads of wheat had been taken
up to the garners, the man at the foot of the eleva-
tors (the long upright boxes) made the signal to the
man in the weighing room. The signal showed not
only that the wheat had gone up, but to which
scales it would come down. The weigher moved
the levers at the scales indicated, and the wheat
poured down — one carload into each hopper.

When it had all come down, the weigher stamped
the weight on a weighing card, noted the date, the
number of the car, the initials on the car (which
showed to what railroad company it belonged), the
kind of grain weighed (whether wheat, oats, flax,
barley, rye, or corn), the grades of grain, how much
allowance was made for waste, on what scale it was
weighed, and in what bin it would be storedo

158

The state weighmaster then came and examined
the scale and the record, to make sure that no
mistake had been made. Then the hoppers .were
opened and the wheat began to run down to the
bins.

" Come, Walter," said Mr. King, " let us follow
the wheat " ; and they went dovvn to a large room,
where there were a great number of large, round
iron covers over holes in the floor. These were the
covers over the tops of the spouts that led to
the storage bins. A large jointed spout, from the
hopper of every scale, connected with these spouts,
and could be turned to lead the wheat directly from
the scale into any of these bins.

There were more bins at the farther end of the
building, which were fed by means of an endless
belt extending the whole length of the very long
room. The belt was about five feet wide, and the
wheat, poured in from the spout, lay along it in a
thick wide strip.

" Now they are going to fill one of the side bins,"
said Mr. King, as the men moved the machine
called the "tripper" along under the belt, to turn
the wheat into the spout leading into the bin.
This was called "tripping wheat"; and the wheat
from the swiftly moving belt could be tripped into
any of the bins.

159

" What keeps the wheat on that belt ? " asked
Walter.

" The engineer would tell you it was kept in line
by ' centrifugal force/ " said Mr. King. " You will
learn about it when you are a few years older.

" The wheat is stored in these bins till it is
wanted for use, when it is drawn off through spouts
in the bottom of the bins. It is again taken to
the garners and sent to the scales, and is carefully
weighed into the shipping bins, and poured into
freight cars, that come up on the track under
the bins, as you saw in the little elevator at our
home station. Then ' it is taken directly to the
mills, to be made into flour, or it is sent away to
eastern cities, or across the sea.

" Besides the wheat stored in these great ele-
vators, millions of bushels are shipped over the
Great Lakes in the vessels that come back loaded
with coal."

XLIII. BUYING WHEAT

Many cars still stood on the tracks farther up in
the railroad yard. While Walter and his father
were looking at them, a man with a pointed brass
rod climbed up on a car and plunged the rod into
the wheat in three or four places.

" What is he doing? " asked Walter.

" He is taking samples of wheat," said Mr. King.
"That brass rod is a 'plunging rod.' It is hollow,
and has a row of holes along the side, and there are
slides within. It has a handle on the top, by which
the holes are opened and closed. They are closed
when he thrusts it into the wheat ; then he turns
the handle and opens the holes, and the wheat runs
in. He pours the wheat into a little bag, which is
marked with the number of the car. This enables
him to get wheat from almost every part of a car-
load. When he has tested all the cars that are
ready for him, he takes the samples to the owner of
the wheat, who puts them in dishes, and sets them
on a table in the room where grain is bought and
sold.

i6o

I6i

Bidding for Wheat.

" Now suppose the supply of wheat for one of the
mills has run short. The buyer for that mill comes
in and says, * I want forty carloads of wheat to-
day.'

" The wheat men show their samples. The buyer
is accustomed to handling wheat, and knows the
grades as soon as he sees the grain. If the quality
of the wheat and the prices suit him, he says, * I'll
take this car, and this car, and this car,' till he has
as much as his mill needs.

" Or he may not be able to buy as much as he

STO. COUN. LIFE — II

l62

needs in this way, and will be compelled to go into
the ' pit,' which we shall see this afternoon."

When Mr. King opened the door of the room
where they were selling wheat, Walter almost turned
back.

" What a dreadful noise ! What are they doing ? "
he said.

" Only buying and selling wheat," said his father.

A crowd of men stood before a platform, shouting
and wildly gesticulating, and almost climbing over
each other in their eagerness to attract the attention
of the man on the platform. Walter thought they
were all out of their minds. But when the bell
struck, the uproar ceased, and they walked out in a
quiet, orderly way that convinced him that they
were sane men after all. His father explained that
the shouting was only their way of bidding, and that
the gestures had a meaning, which could be under-
stood when their voices could not be heard.

A Flour Mill.

XLIV. THE MILLS

In the morning Mr. King said, "We will go to
one of the great Jflour mills to-day."

There were cars standing on the mill track, and
steam shovels were unloading wheat when Mr. King
entered the office and asked if they might see the
mill. Permission was readily given, and one of the
millers went with them to explain the different pro*
cesses, and also to see that they did not go into
dangerous places.

163 '

164

The wheat from the car fell through the grating
into the scale hopper. It was weighed and was
again weighed by the state weighmaster, and records
were made as before in the elevator. The cards
tacked to the inner door were also carefully saved.
A red card showed that the wheat had come from
one of the storage elevators ; a white one, that it
had come direct from the country.

As soon as it was weighed it was lifted to the top
of the mill, and ^passed through a separator to take
out straws, sticks, or anything that might have fallen
into it, and then it was stored in bins. As it was
needed for grinding, it was drawn off through spouts,
and taken by a "conveyor" to other separators. The
conveyor was a long, covered, wooden box in which
an iron shaft with flanges revolved rapidly, and sent
the wheat along, as chips are sent out by the spiral
groove of an auger. The separators were great
fanning mills, in which the wheat fell in thin cas-
cades from one screen to another, while the chaff,
dust, and seeds were blown out by a strong current
of air.

After the wheat had been made as clean as possi-
ble in the separators, it was scoured by a coarse stiff
brush that polished the kernels, and took off the little
bunch of tiny hairs that grow at one end of every
kernel of wheat. This made the wheat clean

i65

enough unless there was "smut" among the kernels,
a fungus that often grows on ears of grain and
makes them turn black. Whenever smut was found
the wheat was washed.

It was then carried by another conveyor to the
steamers, and subjected to heat. If very dry, it was
moistened with water, but it had been raining when
this wheat that Walter saw was brought in, and
the miller said it had taken enough moisture from
the damp air.

After it had been heated in the steamers, it
passed along to the drier, where the dampness was
carried off by a current of hot air. " All this," the
miller said, " is to toughen the outer coating of the
kernel, so that it may be taken off as nearly whole
as possible, and also to * temper ' the wheat."

" What does it mean to ' temper ' the wheat ? "
asked Walter.

" Sometimes the wheat is too dry to make flour,"
said the miller, ** sometimes it is too wet; some of
it may be very cold, while another part may be
warm. After it has passed through the steamers
and drier, it comes out equally moist and warm.
This we call * tempering the wheat,' and on the suc-
cess of this process depend largely the amount and
quality of the flour."

The wheat was then ready for the rollers. The

i66

first set cracked the kernel and let the germ fall
out The second set made it a little finer, and the
third broke it into small pieces. Then it went on
to a machine containing many sieves, some coarse
and s6me very fine, in which it was separated into
many different parts. Walter could not understand

Grinding Wheat.

all this, but the miller said he need only rernember
that the bran fell from one spout in this machine,
the germ from another, middlings from a third, and
fine flour from still another.

The bran went on to be packed for feed ; the germ
was sometimes made into a kind of breakfast food ;
while the middlings and flour passed to another set

167

of rollers, where they were again crushed, and sent
into a purifier, which took out all the rem.aining
woody fiber, that might otherwise color the flour.
From the purifier the fine flour went directly to the
packer, while the middlings that still remained re-
turned to the rollers to be ground again.

The packer was a cylinder, over which a sack
was drawn. Within the cylinder, an auger-like
shaft received the flour from the conveyor, and
pressed it into the sack which rested on a movable
platform. As the sack filled it came down with the
platform. A sharp click told the miller that it was
full and the packer thrown out of gear ; he took it
away and put an empty sack in its place. He
weighed the filled sack, and if it was not heavy
enough, added some flour from the barrel that stood
by his side, of if it was too heavy he took out some.

Another man sewed the sack up with coarse linen
twine, and passed it to a truckman who wheeled it
to the waiting freight car, if it was intended for the
home market. If it was to be sent across the sea,
the cotton sack was inclosed in a sack of heavy
burlap to protect it from dust and dampness.

Some of the flour was packed in barrels, and the
barrels were rolled down an inclined plane and
across a platform, with force enough to carry them
up a similar inclined plane into the car.

i68

The cars were prepared for the sacks by a lining
of clean brown paper, and a layer of fresh bran on
the floor. When they were loaded and pushed
down into the yard, a big freight engine steamed in
and carried them away.

Packing Flour.

As they were about to leave the mill after Walter
had thanked the miller for answering all his ques-
tions so kindly, the miller said, " Here is one more
thing that I am sure you would like to see," and he
opened a door to show the wheat moving on an in-
clined belt.

i69

" This machine is taking out the wild mustard
seed," he said. " The separators takeout all kinds
of seeds except the little smooth round mustard seed,
and how to get rid of that has always been a prob-
lem for millers. If this belt were too steep, some
of the wheat would fall back ; if it were not steep
enough, the mustard seeds would go on with the
wheat. At just the proper angle the little seeds
roll back, fall into a pit under the machine, and are
taken away by the car load to be made into oil, some-
what like linseed oil, though not so good.

" That is an elevator for the use of the men who
work in the mill," he explained, as Walter started at
sight of a man s feet coming down through the ceil-
ing. He was clinging to an iron handle riveted to a
wide belt, while he stood on a bracket, which was
also fastened to the moving belt. The men swung
themselves on and off this simple contrivance with
the greatest ease, though strangers were not allowed
to go up and down in that way.

" How much machinery, and how many men it
requires to take care of one crop of wheat ! " said
Walter.

" Yes," answered his father ; " and while they all
depend on us for their bread, we could do very little
without their help. We need the blacksmith to
keep our tools in order, the machinist to make them,

170

the miner to dig the iron and coal, the elevator men
to store our grain, the miller to make it into flour,
and the railroad men and sailors to carry it to
market."

" But though I like to see the various kinds of
work," said Walter, " I think farming is the best of
all, and I would rather be a farmer than anything
else in the world."
. " That is well, my boy," said Mr. King, " but
remember that the farmer who is really useful to
the world is the one who can 'make two ears of
corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of
ground where only one grew before.' "

Baldwin's School Readers

By James Baldwin

Editor of " Harper's Readers," Author of **01d Greek Stories," "Old
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In method and in subject matter, as well as in artistic
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First Year, 12S pp. 25 cents Fifth Year, 208 pp. 40 cents
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For the convenience of ungraded schools, and for all
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Nature Readers

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STORIES OF ANIMAL LIFE

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SHORT STORIES OF OUR SHY NEIGHBORS

By Mrs. M. A. B. Kelly 50 cents

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PLANTS AND THEIR CHILDREN

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Burnet's Zoology

FOR

HIGH SCHOOLS AND ACADEMIES

BY

MARGARETTA BURNET

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Cloth, 12mo, 216 pages. Illustrated. Price, 75 cents

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FOR ELEMENTARY AND GRAMMAR SCHOOLS

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Birds of the United States

A Manual for the Identification of Species East of the
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By Austin C. Apgar
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